A Typology of Platform Power and its Regulation

24 January 2025 By

While the issue of platform power has received an overwhelming amount of attention in academic and policy circles, its concerns have so far been addressed in a piecemeal fashion. In an effort to bring together different lines of thinking, we created an overarching typology of platform power for the INCA project consisting of three forms of control that can be distinguished from a legal and policy perspective: (1) power over markets; (2) power over individuals; and (3) power over society. The power over markets refers to the impact of platforms on competition and innovation. The power over individuals refers to the impact of platforms on the interests of workers, business users and consumers. The power over society refers to the impact of platforms on politics, opinion formation and their presence in an increasing range of spheres of our lives, including domains such as health and education that used to be dominated by public actors.

Based on this three-fold characterization, we analyzed from a legal and policy perspective to what extent the EU regulatory framework is capable of controlling platform power. While the control of platforms over markets and individuals in particular is widely analyzed from the perspective of legal domains like competition law, data protection and consumer law, platform power over society is less well-understood and therefore arguably deserves most attention from policymakers and regulators. With regard to regulatory options, the broad impact of platforms shows that a single legislative framework is unlikely to address the different concerns. A mix of strategies and interventions is arguably needed to control the power of platforms over markets, individuals, and society. At the same time, a mix of approaches creates risks of regulatory fragmentation and inconsistencies when several legal regimes apply to the same issue in parallel. The adoption of new legislative instruments like the DMA, DSA, Data Act and AI Act has led to additional protections against platform power, but also makes the overall EU regulatory framework more complicated because of the increasing overlap in definitions, rules and enforcement mechanisms.

In terms of regulatory options, two broad approaches can be outlined. One is to adopt new legislative instruments to fill remaining gaps in addressing platform power, especially considering the more limited attention for platform power over society so far. This could create the necessary additional protections. However, considering the increasing complexity and fragmentation of the EU regulatory framework, another approach is to consolidate protections, substantively (by clustering rules relevant to platforms and creating a more focused regulatory framework tailored to platform power) and/or institutionally (by providing enforcement powers over platforms to one regulatory authority).

Regardless of the regulatory route taken in the EU, the three-fold characterization of platform power over markets, individuals, and society may help to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the different ways in which platforms impact values and interests protected in EU law now and in the future.

Bostoen and Inge Graef, Tilburg University