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Economic Dependence and Data Access

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Abstract

Traditionally, according to EU competition law, if an undertaking holding a dominant position refuses to grant access to its data to another undertaking, this could potentially lead to an abuse precluded by Art. 102 TFEU. However, the scope of this provision is limited as it only applies to dominant undertakings. Yet, powerful data holders that do not benefit from such a dominant position might start refusing to provide access to their data to undertakings with limited bargaining power. This is notably illustrated by two cases in the USA, namely PeopleBrowsr v. Twitter and hiQ v. LinkedIn. These two cases raise the question of whether the concept of abuse of economic dependence could prove to be a valuable alternative in order to deal with refusals, by non-dominant undertakings, to provide access to data to undertakings with a weaker bargaining power. In this article, the rationale for data access and sharing in light of the data’s characteristics will first be briefly outlined. Then, the conditions of the abuse of economic dependence will be identified by relying on Belgian, German and French law. On these grounds, the article will question whether a refusal to provide access to data could qualify as an abuse of economic dependence.

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Notes

  1. European Commission (2018a), p. 10.

  2. Barbero et al. (2018), pp. 92–93.

  3. Barbero et al. (2018), p. 31.

  4. Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, OJ C 326/47, 26 October 2012.

  5. Drexl (2016), p. 44.

  6. CFI, 17 September 2007, T-201/04, Microsoft I; ECJ, 29 April 2004, C-418/01, IMS Health; ECJ, 26 November 1998, C-7/97, Bronner; ECJ, 6 April 1995, joined cases C-241/91 and C-242/91, Magill.

  7. See, inter alia, Graef (2016); Drexl (2016), pp. 44–55; Graef et al. (2015), p. 382.

  8. See Colangelo and Maggiolino (2017).

  9. For the essential facilities doctrine to apply, access to the essential facility has to be indispensable in order to conduct a business on the secondary market.

  10. Autorité de la concurrence and Bundeskartellamt (2016), p. 18.

  11. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013; Graef (2016), p. 257.

  12. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  13. See Sect. 4. “Refusal to Provide Access to Data and Abuse of Economic Dependence”.

  14. Crémer et al. (2019), p. 76.

  15. Graef and Prüfer (2018), p. 298.

  16. European Commission (2018b).

  17. OECD (2015), p. 179.

  18. Frischmann (2012), cited in OCDE (2015), p. 179.

  19. OECD (2015), p. 179–180.

  20. OECD (2015), pp. 180–181.

  21. OECD (2015), pp. 181–182.

  22. De Streel, “From one bridge to another: The essential facilities doctrine and data” (to be published), p. 14.

  23. Crémer et al. (2019), p. 76.

  24. Larouche (2008), pp. 616–620.

  25. Art. 3.2 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Arts. 81 and 82 of the Treaty Regulation (OJ L 1, 4 January 2003) indeed allows Member States to adopt and apply on their territory stricter national laws which prohibit or sanction unilateral conduct engaged in by undertakings.

  26. Loi du 4 avril 2019 modifiant le Code de droit économique en ce qui concerne les abus de dépendance économique, les clauses abusives et les pratiques du marché déloyales entre entreprises, M.B., 24 mai 2019.

  27. Author’s translation of: “Est interdit le fait pour une ou plusieurs entreprises d’exploiter de façon abusive une position de dépendance économique dans laquelle se trouvent une ou plusieurs entreprises à son ou à leur égard, dès lors que la concurrence est susceptible d’en être affectée sur le marché belge concerné ou une partie substantielle de celui-ci”.

  28. “Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen” (Act against Restraints of Competition, adopted on 26 August 1998 and lastly amended on 12 July 2018). The official English translation of the Competition Act is available at http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gwb/englisch_gwb.html#p0066.

  29. §19 Competition Act targets the prohibited conduct of dominant undertakings.

  30. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy recommended to abolish the limitation of the benefit of § 20 Competition Act to SMEs, as it is well established that the situation of dependence covered by this provision could also arise for large firms (Schweitzer et al. (2018)). An English version of the summary of the report’s recommendations is available at https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/Studien/modernisierung-der-missbrauchsaufsicht-fuer-marktmaechtige-unternehmen-zusammenfassungenglisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFilev=3.

  31. Official English translation: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gwb/englisch_gwb.html#p0066.

  32. Official translation available on https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/en-English/Legifrance-translations.

  33. Feteira (2016), p. 150.

  34. Feteira (2016), pp. 167–168.

  35. Article I.6, 4° CDE. Belgian law requires to show that, due to this lack of a reasonably equivalent alternative, the stronger undertaking can impose services or conditions which could not be obtained under normal market circumstances, but this condition is redundant with the definition of the abuse provided for in Belgian law: “any behaviour that an undertaking can adopt because it holds the dependent undertaking in a situation of economic dependence” (Proposition de loi du 22 février 2019 modifiant le Code de droit économique en ce qui concerne les abus de dépendance économique, les clauses abusives et les pratiques du marché déloyales entre entreprises, Doc., Ch., 2018-2019, n° 3595/001, p. 15).

  36. See for example German Federal Supreme Court, Designer Polstermöbel, 9 May 2000, WuW/DE-R 481; Depotkosmetik, 15 May 1998, WuW/DE-R 206; Reparaturbetrieb, 23 February 1988, WuW/E BGH 2479; Cartier, 10 November 1987, WuW/E BGH 2451; Adidas, 30 June 1981, WuW/E BGH 1885; Rossignol, 20 November 1975, WuW/E BGH 1391. See decisions Nos. 87-MC-02, 25 March 1987; 89-D-39, 13 December 1989; 93-D-48, 9 November 1993; 98-D-32, 26 May 1998; and 01-D-49, 31 August 2001 of the French competition authority.

  37. See for example Berlin Court of Appeal, Agip II, 7 June 1974 and 4 July 1974, WuW/E OLG 1497 and 1499.

  38. See for example BGH, Kfz-Vertragshändler, 21 February 1995, WuW/E BGH 2983; Herstellerleasing, 19 January 1993, WuW/E BGH 2875; Opel Blitz, WuW/E BGH 2491; Kraftwagenleasing, 30 September 1971, WuW/E BGH 1211. See decisions Nos. 89-D-16, 30 May 1989; 90-D-42, 6 November 1990; and 99-D-54, 29 September 1999, of the French competition authority.

  39. See for example Federal Supreme Court, Konditionenanpassung, 24 September 2002, WuW/DE-R 948; Sehhilfen, 12 May 1976, WuW/E BGH 1423. See decisions Nos. 91-D-51, 19 November 1991; 94-D-60, 13 December 1994; 96-D-44, 18 June 1996; and 03-D-11, 23 February 2003 of the French competition authority.

  40. Feteira (2016), pp. 151–158 and 170–171.

  41. Feteira (2016), p. 171; Proposition de loi du 22 février 2019 modifiant le Code de droit économique en ce qui concerne les abus de dépendance économique, les clauses abusives et les pratiques du marché déloyales entre entreprises, Doc., Ch., 2018-2019, n° 3595/001, p. 15.

  42. Author’s translation of: “1° le refus illicite d’une vente, d’un achat ou d’autres conditions de transaction; 2° l’imposition de façon directe ou indirecte des prix d’achat ou de vente ou d’autres conditions de transaction non équitables; 3° la limitation de la production, des débouchés ou du développement technique au préjudice des consommateurs; 4° le fait d’appliquer à l’égard de partenaires économiques des conditions inégales à des prestations équivalentes, en leur infligeant de ce fait un désavantage dans la concurrence; 5° le fait de subordonner la conclusion de contrats à l’acceptation, par les partenaires économiques, de prestations supplémentaires, qui, par leur nature ou selon les usages commerciaux, n’ont pas de lien avec l’objet de ces contrats.”

  43. Proposition de loi du 22 février 2019 modifiant le Code de droit économique en ce qui concerne les abus de dépendance économique, les clauses abusives et les pratiques du marché déloyales entre entreprises, Doc., Ch., 2018–2019, n° 3595/001, pp. 4–5.

  44. Feteira (2016), p. 144–145 and 165.

  45. Boy (2006), p. 218, cited in Bakhoum (2015), p. 14.

  46. Feteira (2016), pp. 161–162.

  47. Bakhoum (2015), p. 14.

  48. Art. L. 420-2, al. 2 of the French Code de Commerce; Art. IV.2/1 of the Belgian Code de droit économique.

  49. Bougette et al. (2018), p. 6.

  50. De Boüard (2007), pp. 298–299; Feteira (2016), p. 171.

  51. Bougette et al. (2018), p. 6.

  52. Bakhoum (2015), p. 17.

  53. Bougette et al. (2018), p. 7.

  54. Bougette et al. (2018), p. 8.

  55. Bakhoum (2015), p. 17.

  56. Kerber (2019), p. 29.

  57. Bougette et al. (2018), p. 8.

  58. Bougette et al. (2018), p. 10.

  59. Bakhoum (2015), p. 17.

  60. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  61. Graef (2016), p. 257.

  62. Graef (2016), p. 257.

  63. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  64. LinkedIn users can choose to keep their profiles entirely private, or to make them viewable by their direct connections on the site, a broader network of connections, all other LinkedIn members or the entire public (including internet users not registered on LinkedIn). In the case at hand, hiQ conducted its business by automatically collecting, harvesting or “scraping” the data from the latter categories of profiles (publicly available LinkedIn profiles).

  65. Autorité de la concurrence and Bundeskartellamt (2016), p. 18.

  66. ECJ, 26 November 1998, C-7/97, Bronner.

  67. ECJ, Bronner, para. 44.

  68. (i) The refusal to grant access excludes all effective competition on the downstream market; (ii) prevents the introduction of a new product/technological innovation; and (iii) there is no objective justification for the refusal. See the case law and legal literature cited in footnotes 6 and 7.

  69. Colangelo and Maggiolino (2017), pp. 270–271.

  70. Graef (2016), p. 267.

  71. Colangelo and Maggiolino (2017), p. 273.

  72. European Commission, Case COMP/M.7217, Facebook/WhatsApp (2014), paras. 188–189; Colangelo and Maggiolino (2017), p. 271.

  73. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  74. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  75. ECJ, 26 November 1998, C-7/97, Bronner, para. 44.

  76. ECJ, Bronner, §§ 45–46.

  77. §18, No. 3a Competition Act; Haucap (2018), p.10.

  78. Consumers are “locked into” a service because no other reasonable alternative exists, having reached a minimum scale (e.g. having a sufficient minimum number of users).

  79. Having more costumers provides more data, which allows to improve the product/service. In turn, improving the product/service attracts more consumers that provide additional data, which again allows to improve the product/service, etc.

  80. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  81. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  82. Declaration of John David Rich in support of the plaintiff’s application for a temporary restraining order in the case PeopleBrowsr v. Twitter in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco, November 2012, paras. 4–5, available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/114846303/Rich-Declaration-PB-v-TW-Restraining-Order-28-Nov-12, cited in Graef (2015), p. 499.

  83. Khan (2018), pp. 13–14. See also Bougette et al. (2018), p. 14.

  84. Naturally, the access seeker should be careful not to provide too much information, in order to avoid the application of Art. 101 TFEU because of a risk of tacit collusion. However, this latter issue could be solved by preventing the data holder’s department dealing with the data access request from sharing this specific information with other departments. Moreover, if some of the data to which the access is requested is personal data, providing explanations about the product/service that it intends to offer will also be necessary to comply with the core processing principles of Art. 5 GDPR, and notably the principle of purpose limitation.

  85. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  86. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  87. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), O.J., L 119, 4 May 2016.

  88. “An identified or identifiable natural person” (Art. 4.1 GDPR).

  89. “Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (“data subject”); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person” (Art. 4.1 GDPR).

  90. Considered as “provided” are the data actively and knowingly provided by the data subject (name, age, email address …) and the observed data provided by the data subject by virtue of the use of the service or the device of the data controller (search history, traffic and localisation data, number of footsteps per day collected by a smart watch …), but not the inferred data and derived data that are created by the data controller on the basis of the data “provided” by the data subject (user profiles, results of an evaluation of the data subject’s health based on the data that its smart watch has collected …) (WP 29 (2017), p. 10).

  91. “The natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data” (Art. 4.7 GDPR).

  92. European Commission (2009), para. 84.

  93. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  94. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  95. See infra Sect. 4.1.2.2.

  96. Kerber (2018), p. 329.

  97. Kerber (2018), p. 329.

  98. Kerber (2019), p. 32. For a more thorough analysis of how this could be applied to the automotive sector, where the car manufacturers might have such de facto exclusive control, see pp. 28–35.

  99. The benefit of the protection of § 20 Competition Act is not limited to undertakings engaged in existing agreements or business relations, but may extend to undertakings willing to enter into such agreements or relations (Feteira (2016), p. 152).

  100. Schweitzer et al. (2018), p. 5.

  101. See supra Sect. 3.2.2 Anticompetitive Effects.

  102. Kerber (2019), p. 29.

  103. Bougette et al. (2018), p. 8.

  104. Bakhoum (2015), p. 17.

  105. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  106. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  107. Graef et al. (2015), pp. 384–385; Graef (2016), p. 257.

  108. Abrahamson (2014), p. 874, cited in Graef (2016), p. 257.

  109. Crémer et al. (2019), p. 88.

  110. De Streel, “From one bridge to another: The essential facilities doctrine and data” (to be published), p. 14.

  111. Gal and Rubinfeld (2019), p. 9.

  112. In the same vein, the data continuum described above (raw – structured – analysed) might not necessarily apply in all situations, notably because Big Data analytics also allows the analysis of unstructured data.

  113. “‘Big data’ is a field that treats ways to analyse, systematically extract information from, or otherwise deal with data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software (…) Big data was originally associated with three key concepts: volume, variety, and velocity. Other concepts later attributed with big data are veracity (i.e. how much noise is in the data) and value” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data).

  114. Crémer et al. (2019), p. 101.

  115. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  116. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  117. Argenton and Prüfer (2012), p. 73. The two-sided market nature of search engines should, however, not be ignored. Given that they are remunerated by the revenue from advertising and not by the searches, an imposition to share this search data could undermine the viability of the service if it is used by the access seeker to provide competing online advertising services.

  118. The ISO 29100 standard defines anonymisation as the: “process by which personally identifiable information (PII) is irreversibly altered in such a way that a PII principal can no longer be identified directly or indirectly, either by the PII controller alone or in collaboration with any other party” (ISO 29100:2011, point 2.2, available at https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:29100:ed-1:v1:en).

  119. “The processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person” (Art. 4.5 GDPR).

  120. On this “spin-off effect” theory, see inter alia, Derclaye (2004), pp. 402–413; Hugenholtz (2003).

  121. Derclaye (2004), p. 412; Hugenholtz (2003), p. 7.

  122. Carbonell (2016), p.5.

  123. For case law addressing data sharing as a remedy see: Autorité de la concurrence, decision No. 17-D-06 (GDF Suez), 21 March 2017, available on http://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/pdf/avis/17d06.pdf.

  124. See supra Sect. 4.1.1 Assessment of the State of Economic Dependence.

  125. Here it should be mentioned that, regarding personal data, the GDPR provides that the exercise of the portability right should be free (Art. 12.5 GDPR). It could thus seem incoherent to allow the data holder to be remunerated for the access to the data via the abuse of economic dependence provisions if it has to port the same data for free under the GDPR portability right. However, portability is free under the GDPR in order to facilitate the exercise of the “data subjects” rights. Considering that here the access seeker is a competing undertaking, and not a data subject, it makes sense to subject the access to a fee.

  126. ECJ, 16 July 2015, C-170/13, Huawei.

  127. ECJ, Huawei, paras. 60–69.

  128. Drexl (2016), p. 55. See also Richter and Slowenski (2019).

  129. Drexl (2016), p. 55.

  130. European Commission (2018b).

  131. The “freshness” and “up-to-dateness” of the data can indeed be of the utmost importance for certain business models (see Kathuria and Globocnik (2019), pp. 18–19).

  132. “In computer programming, an application programming interface (API) is a set of subroutine definitions, communication protocols, and tools for building software. In general terms, it is a set of clearly defined methods of communication among various components” (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_ programming_interface).

  133. Kathuria and Globocnik (2019), p. 17.

  134. Superior Court of the State of California, PeopleBrowsr, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc. (PeopleBrowsr), No. C-12-6120 EMC, 2013 WL 843032, N. D. Cal., 6 March 2013.

  135. United States District Court, Northern District of California, hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 17-cv-03301-EMC, 14 August 2017, available at https://epic.org/amicus/cfaa/linkedin/2017-08-15-PI-Order.pdf.

  136. If the data is anonymised, and thus not simply pseudonymised, the data are no longer personal data and the GDPR no longer applies.

  137. Haucap (2018), p. 12.

  138. On this question, see Kathuria and Globocnik (2019).

  139. The ECtHR consistently holds that the term “law” must not be given a “formal interpretation”, which would necessarily imply the existence of a written statute, but rather a “material interpretation”, which not only covers the written statutes but all the legal rules in force, including case law. See ECtHR, Sunday Times v. United Kingdom, 26 April 1979, req. No. 6538/74, paras. 46–53; Hüvig v. France, 24 April 1990, req. No. 11105/84, para. 28; Kruslin v. France, 24 April 1990, req. No. 11801/85, para. 29.

  140. Art. 6.1(a), (c) and (f) GDPR.

  141. Art. 5.1(a) GDPR.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Prof. Dr. Alexandre de Streel, Prof. Dr. Reto M Hilty, Dr. Inge Graef, Dr. Bertin Martens and the participants to the “Third Workshop for Junior Researchers in IP law” organised at Sciences Po Law School on 20–21 June 2019 (in particular Thomas Verdonk), for their valuable comments on the draft versions of this article. The author would also like to thank BELSPO, the Belgian Federal Science Policy office, for their financial aid, according to the agreement of subsidy No. [BR/154/A4/FLEXPUB].

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  1. University of Namur – CRIDS – NaDI, Namur, Belgium

    Thomas Tombal

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Tombal, T. Economic Dependence and Data Access. IIC 51, 70–98 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40319-019-00891-0

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