Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14475
Authors: Christian Peukert; Stefan Bechtold; Michail Batikas; Tobias Kretschmer
Abstract: We demonstrate how privacy law interacts with competition and trade policy in the context of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We follow more than 110,000 websites for 18 months to show that websites reduced their connections to web technology providers after GDPR became effective, especially regarding requests involving personal data. This also holds for websites catering to non-EU audiences and therefore not bound by GDPR. We further document an increase in market concentration in web technology services after the introduction of GDPR. While most firms lose market share, the leading firm, Google, significantly increases market share.
Keywords: privacy; competition policy; antitrust; internet regulation; compliance risk; gdpr; brussels effect; cookies; web tracking
JEL Codes: L15; L86; K21; L12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| GDPR (K24) | reduction in connections to third-party web technology providers (F69) |
| GDPR (K24) | shift in market concentration in web technology services (L86) |
| GDPR (K24) | adjustment of practices by websites catering to non-EU audiences (M38) |