Strange bedfellows: Consumer protection and competition policy in the making of the EU privacy regime

Koray Caliskan, Donald MacKenzie, Charlotte Rommerskirchen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

How was the European Union's privacy regime built? Drawing on regime theory and carrying out qualitative document analysis, we present the evolution of the privacy regime across the three decades from the 1995 European Data Protection Directive to the 2016 General Data Protection Regulation, the 2022 Data Governance Act and finally the 2022 Digital Markets package. Our analysis focuses on the European Commission and suggests that the privacy regime emerged out of the seemingly conflicting interplay between the (digital) single market whose power draws on the network effects of expanding data resources and concerns for personal privacy that seek limiting data gathering itself. Contrary to expectations, potential tensions between competition law and consumer protection have not hindered or decelerated the formation of the regulatory regime. In fact, these tensions have proven to be surprisingly productive.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies
Early online date27 Sept 2023
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 27 Sept 2023

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • digital privacy
  • digital single market
  • competition policy
  • digital advertising
  • European Commission

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Strange bedfellows: Consumer protection and competition policy in the making of the EU privacy regime'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this