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algorithmic price setting and abuse of dominance case analysis from Malaysia, Indonesia, and India and
concludes with some recommendations for improvement.
2. Digital Knowledge Management, Technology, and Marketing Under Competition Law
2.1 Digital Economy and Competition Law
The task of legitimising digital corporations conducts under CL became critical issue of concern after various
scandals and public upheavals surfaced with a number of important competition cases brought against the digital
kings like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft (FGAAM). FGAAM alleged for preserving and
monopolising market power to undermine competition on merit (Fung,2020) and consumers welfare. The
unprecedented scale and speed with which personal data is collected and used in the context of prediction
algorithms, an omniscient, opaque machinery threatens to erode the very foundation of consumer privacy. And
the ability of their digital monopolies to control much of our attention by dictating which content exposed to
and to influence our behaviour, brings about the “economy of attention,” users’ where eyeballs become
the main commodity traded, monetization for ads such as on YouTube or Facebook, ranging from a few cents
to several dollars depending on the specificity of the target audience (Marz, et.al.,2018, April 10). Hence, there
is robust debate regarding the extent to which CL should be applied on these digital features to regulate their
markets.
CL enactments generally aimed to control or eliminate restrictive agreements or arrangements among
enterprises, or mergers and acquisitions or abuse of dominant positions of market power, which limit access to
markets or otherwise unduly restrain competition, adversely affecting domestic or international trade or
economic development (UNCTAD,2010) to ultimately widen the consumer choice, reduce prices, and improve
quality besides encouraging innovation (EU, 2012). CL policy emphasises businesses of the same kind to
compete fairly with each other to maximize consumer welfare (Whish & Bailey, 2015). Generally, CL prohibits
anti-competitive agreements horizontally (or cartel) or vertically (between economic players at different levels),
abuse of market power by dominant firms or attempts of not yet dominant firms to monopolise markets and ant-
competitive merger or acquisition (M&A). However, there is considerable divergence in each jurisdiction about
the precise definition of prohibited agreement or dominance, the range of practices and conducts that should be
condemned as anti-competitive, and remedies that should be imposed. And for many developing countries, CL
itself relatively novel area and authorities have limited resources and experience in handling anti-competitive
cases.
2.2 Challenges in Applying Competition law on Digital Economy
Digitalised activities challenge regulators and the existing legislative tools, to channel the CL infringement
action on (non-human) algorithms or creators and/or users or the data abusers. Automation, AI, and algorithmic
although efficient but seriously undermine human sovereignty, at every stage: in the manner data is collected
and processed and stored, as well as way algorithms is used, the authority it is given to act, technical rules for
the construction of algorithms and the supervision of automated execution. The sheer greed for data causes
M&A, in the disguise of asset acquisition to increase concentration by (especially big companies) by buying
out upstart rivals before even it becomes a competitive threat. Mergers may not only hinder price competition
but also impede innovation and enable the dominant corporations to adopt harmful exclusionary practices such
as refusals to deal with rivals, restrictive contracting, tacit collusion, and predatory pricing that ultimately
squelch competition (News Release, 2021, February 4) and impair consumer welfare. Lack of expertise and
E- Proceedings of The 5th International Multi-Conference on Artificial Intelligence Technology (MCAIT 2021) [133]
Artificial Intelligence in the 4th Industrial Revolution