Australia’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), is launching a month-long consultation to explore the ways in which the expanding ecosystems of Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft could harm consumers.
The ACCC will examine the breadth of these platforms, which invest heavily in different sectors and technologies, creating a web of interconnected products and services.
This breadth presents a barrier to new entrants and allows the platforms to restrict interoperability of their services, creating a “less seamless experience” for users outside their ecosystem. The ACCC will also investigate anti-competitive behaviours such as bundling, self-preferencing and excessive or undisclosed data collection. The ACCC has issued an issues paper and is inviting submissions until April 5.