Abuse of dominance and the commodification of cyberspace

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorHOFFMANN, Linus Joachim
dc.date.accessioned2025-02-19T16:08:36Z
dc.date.embargo2029-02-19
dc.date.issued2025
dc.descriptionDefence date: 19 February 2025en
dc.descriptionExamining Board: Prof. Nicolas Petit (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Dina Waked (Sciences Po, external co-supervisor); Prof. Giorgio Monti (European University Institute); Prof. Filippo Lancieri (Georgetown University)en
dc.description.abstractThis thesis explores the relationship between abuse of dominance case law in Europe and the commodification of intangible resources in the digital economy. Digital platforms focus on extracting value from intangibles such as user information, intermediated content, web traffic, advertisable web space, and user groups. As these intangibles are gradually integrated into productive processes, they become objects of commodification. To increase the necessary control over these new commodities, digital platforms employ technological and contractual arrangements, as well as traditional legal institutions like intellectual property. These appropriation strategies can lead to entitlement conflicts between platforms and other economic agents. The enforcers of Article 102 TFEU need to address these entitlement conflicts, and their intervention inevitably shapes regimes of control and exclusion over digital intangibles. The thesis draws on Hohfeld’s and Calabresi & Melamed’s theoretical frameworks to model how competition law enforcers resolve conflicts by reallocating entitlements and instituting them under property rules, liability rules, or inalienability rules. The application of this framework allows to envision alternative competition remedies for existing cases, which may also inspire future enforcers of Article 102 TFEU. The thesis concludes that competition law has become a corrective tool for the process of commodification. From time to time, it reorganises the mechanisms that allocate control over intangible resources in society. Once entitlements over intangibles are exchanged on markets, competing claims over them can be solved through the market itself, through command and control, or - most interestingly - through a range of solutions between these extremes. As enforcers navigate these options, they should consider the long-term implications of the entitlement regimes they create. In the context of commodification, the prohibition of abuse of dominance has become a tool to redistribute entitlements involving new commodities and to adjust their future tradability.en
dc.description.versionChapter 2 'Rivalrous intangibles: Entitlement conflicts in competition cases' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Entitlement problems in digital markets and how antitrust shapes the appropriation of network externalities' (2021) in the journal 'Competition and regulation in network industries'.en
dc.embargo.terms2029-02-19
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationFlorence : European University Institute, 2025en
dc.identifier.doi10.2870/3930208en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/78108
dc.language.isoenen
dc.orcid.uploadfalse*
dc.publisherEuropean University Instituteen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesEUIen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesLAWen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesPhD Thesisen
dc.relation.replaceshttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/73726
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccessen
dc.titleAbuse of dominance and the commodification of cyberspaceen
dc.typeThesisen
dspace.entity.typePublication
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-8877-9236
person.identifier.other44404
relation.isAuthorOfPublication1518709e-c201-4af1-9d46-2db40a7aeeea
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery1518709e-c201-4af1-9d46-2db40a7aeeea
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Hoffmann_2025_LAW.pdf
Size:
2.83 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Embargoed until 2029
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
3.83 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
LAW PhD Theses