“Maybe Elon Musk’s recent outburst can do for app stores what Taylor Swift’s fandom has done for Ticketmaster and catapult associated competition issues to the top of regulators’ minds.”
Vass Bednar on the need for global standards for mobile app stores
A newfound global antitrust movement is being driven largely by governments pushing back on tech giants that have used near-monopolistic power to control markets to their benefit. According to Keldon Bester, concerns abound over Google’s anti-competitive behaviours — it holds a search market share of 90 percent in many countries — such as steering users to its own content and free riding on the content of others.
Robert Fay told Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada that data must be used for the public good while prioritizing consumers over private gain. He stressed that greater collaboration, ideally through a new Digital Stability Board, is needed, and noted developments in some other countries, such as Australia. In Canada, Bloomberg and other media highlighted CIGI experts’ takes on the Competition Bureau’s showdown over the proposed Rogers-Shaw wireless merger.