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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Wild that the US, through antitrust enforcement, has been more effective at getting app store fees down than the EU, which relied on antitrust enforcement + a specific regulatory framework (the Digital Markets Act). A lesson in there somewhere!

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Reposted by Friso Bostoen

CERRE Think Tank @cerrethinktank.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

🗨️Alexandre de Streel & @bostoenfriso.bsky.social shared CERRE research on AI at GW’s Competition & Innovation Lab conference. They addressed: ✅ AI supply-chain concentration ✅ AI Act implementation ✅ Competition policy in digital markets 🔎Explore CERRE's research cerre.eu/publications/

Quote from Friso Bostoen, CERRE Researcher and
Assistant Professor of Competition Law and Digital Regulation
Tilburg University: “Agents are set to be the defining service of the new AI era. Policymakers must protect innovation and contestability. With adjustments, the DMA can help achieve this.” Photo of Friso Bostoen on the right.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Short & sweet contribution to a @capitolforum.bsky.social story on Microsoft's integration of AI services in its productivity suite.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Small but symbolic: in the Google judgment, Judge Mehta writes about the EU's "Digital Marketing Act" instead of the "Digital Markets Act" (quite a difference in meaning!). Might be representative of the US's substantive engagement with EU competition policy (with notable exceptions, of course).

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

A real change of tone from Nick Clegg, who until recently headed policy at Meta. The poison is in the "they *claim* to read the same books" line. Makes me mildly curious about his upcoming book. Via @bloomberglp.bsky.social.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

A final point on which US judges differ from the European Commission: they don't want to (or even can) play whack-a-mole on compliance. So the result of Apple minimally/formally complying (or not even that) is different from the EU: Apple must now allow linking out without *any* commission fee.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Maybe Shoemaker was the last App Store exec who was willing to seriously question the 30% fee (link). Many notable observers who are usually sympathetic to Apple have meanwhile questioned its extraction-at-all-costs strategy (e.g., Ben Thompson, John Gruber). medium.com/@phillipshoe....

medium.com

Apple v. Everybody

In 2008, Apple released the App Store and allowed developers to start submitting apps. Steve was adamant that we review each and every app…

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Now that I've finished reading, it's difficult to argue Schiller really defended developer interests. He is, also according to the judge, one of the few at Apple who actually read the judgment but, while being on "team no commission", he did want to make it very difficult for developers to link out.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

The order exposes an internal battle of financial interests (Maestri) vs developer interests (Schiller), with the CEO (Cook) picking the first side. I'm afraid Apple's erosion of developer goodwill will harm it sooner than later—also financially.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

US judges can be refreshingly direct (certainly compared to EU ones), but Judge YGR's contempt order in Epic v Apple is really something else. Worth reading in full (as I'm doing now).

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Mark Zuckerberg making the case for a spin-off of Instagram - a potential (and logical) remedy should the FTC win its ongoing case against the company (even if I think such a win is a distant prospect). Via www.thebignewsletter.com

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Woah, I used this exact scenario in an assignment for my International Competition Law class last semester. Life imitates art!

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

I'm trying Ecosia on mobile (Bing on desktop) and find its results noticeably worse.. I used DuckDuckGo on desktop & mobile before and found it fine though perhaps slightly inferior - that was a while ago though, it probably improved. Have only used Brave's browser before.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Been trying out different search engines & found Bing interesting. Microsoft set up a gamified system that rewards you for searching. Not overly generous (I collected a 10 EUR gift card after a year), but does suggest other search engines are underpaying (unless their quality is higher).

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

And hey, we’re here on Bluesky, not Twitter! But I agree that quite a lot has to happen before such switching.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Hence my reference to lock-in earlier; there are certainly factors that make platforms less sensitive to leaving and hence user interest. We go into how platforms can turn their back on users in this paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Antitrust rules and remedies against platforms' treacherous turns

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

To keep them from leaving! In that sense, the platform has an interest in satisfying the users’ interest.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Fair point. This was written a while ago and I can’t say my confidence in this statement grew since. But platforms do need to serve the interests of all user groups, incl consumers, even if lock-in can temper that.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Or should we look at quality-adjusted prices? Definitely an argument to be made that you get more out of an hour of HBO than an hour of Netflix

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

So, should we conclude that the consumer welfare gains from a subscription to Netflix are higher than those its competitors? Via @bloomberg.com

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

I love the presence of 'competition' as a value in the US, from the old (American History Museum, first 3 📸) to the new (airport ad against Ticketmaster, last 📸). Special, even if the antitrust conversation doesn't always follow.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Thanks @megangray.bsky.social! No paper on SSRN just yet, but you can find the conference draft linked here: kgi.georgetown.edu/events/dma-a....

kgi.georgetown.edu

DMA and Beyond Conference – Knight-Georgetown Institute

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Reposted by Friso Bostoen

SSRN @ssrn.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Is the Netherlands a #DMA enforcement paradise? This paper outlines how the #Netherlands has influenced the DMA & examines the ACM's preparations to play a key role in its enforcement. Read: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... Subscribe: www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en... #LawSky

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

If you're still looking for holiday reading, let me plug my paper 'Creation and Competition in the Metaverse', which goes into interoperability & the creator economy. If you have half the fun reading it as I had writing it, it promises to be a good time! ssrn.com/abstract=497...

ssrn.com

Creation and Competition in the Metaverse

The metaverse is a futuristic concept. It was first articulated in science fiction but has been pursued by corporations ever since. Due to technical limitations

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Just came across some data that confirms the above: Google Hotels/Lodging loses quite some traffic (-33%), which is mostly compensated by ads & intermediated channels (at a higher cost). www.mirai.com/blog/dma-imp...

mirai.com

DMA impact on hotels: 0.8% loss of direct reservations

The DMA reduces EU direct hotel bookings by 0.8%, with Hotel Ads decreasing its relative share by -33%, profiting OTAs and increasing your distribution costs.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

So (i) more ads, a cost that finds its way into the consumer price; & (ii) more intermediation, as consumers more easily end up on a platform rather than the hotel's site, which again leads to fees for hotels & finally consumers. Not a great outcome but is this due to the DMA or Google's compliance?

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

You can still get to the 'map with hotels' view by scrolling down or by clicking the 'Lodging' tab. I think these results are not sponsored but am not 100% sure.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

This change, & wider DMA search compliance, def leads to more of a focus on ads. Everything 'above the fold' is ads, either in the form of a Google Shopping-like carousel or as a link to a travel platform (mostly Booking!). I had to zoom out to 67% to get to the first non-ads under 'Places sites'.

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Interesting! Google is now experimenting with its DMA compliance, returning in Germany, Belgium & Estonia to something closer to the old '10 blue links' model for hotel searches. 🔗 blog.google/around-the-g... 🔗 support.google.com/webmasters/t...

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

For background (and self-promotion): this is what David & I recommended in a recent article (just published in Common Market Law Review). Regulatory dialogue is a good way to make up for the deficiencies of antitrust's remedy procedures. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

papers.ssrn.com

The Digital Markets Act: A Partial Solution to Antitrust's Remedy Problem

Antitrust remedies in digital markets have shown little effectiveness. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) offers a partial solution by establishing a multi-level rem

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Happy to see confirmed--in the opening of specification proceedings--that the Commission is following a dialogical approach in pursuing compliance with the Digital Markets Act! 🔗 ec.europa.eu/competition/...

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

This should be a good read! (And a long one, at 600+ pages..)

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Friso Bostoen @bostoenfriso.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Giving this network a go because I can't imagine serious antitrust conversations taking place on Threads. Happy to be pointed to any antitrust.. posters (what's the equivalent of tweeters?). I've used Blue Sky Bridge to find people but am probably missing many.

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