Open Digital Ecosystems and Regulating E-commerce Platforms Competition in India: Potential and Pitfalls for Policy Design in India
摘要
Digital technology has enormous potential for infusing growth in an economy. With the exponential growth of digitalisation and the emergence of digital platforms, there are growing concerns related to the regulation of such ecosystems. Peculiar features of digital platforms facilitate winner takes all and thus, give rise to dominant entities, which are able to control the stakeholders and competition in that digital ecosystem. The government and regulators need to take a cautious approach to the regulation of dynamic digital markets as they are still in the evolutionary phase. Digital public goods and digital infrastructure have become key enablers in public service delivery in India in recent times. While the provision of digital infrastructure for service delivery is being applied to other sectors, one needs to be circumspect in applying this beyond public service delivery approaches. The chapter analyses two key sectors in cyber space viz. digital payments and digital commerce to analyse the application of emerging digital public infrastructure principles in these areas. The chapter further discusses various initiatives in India regarding digital public infrastructure and analyses the challenges in applying this approach to the e-commerce marketplace. It identifies challenges in applying this to digital e-commerce and examines regulating digital e-commerce through competition law principles. The study evaluates the approach to the regulation of digital e-commerce through a competition law framework and postulates that dynamic competition law principles can very well be evolved to regulate and ensure competition in the digital marketplace. Further, the chapter proposes that prerequisites like a well-designed big data regulatory regime and cyber law along with a proactive regulatory regime need to be established.