Deciding on terms of privacy policies – what are the risks of anti-competitive collusion?

28.11.2017

Big data is the talk of the town in competition circles. But it is perhaps a more mundane concern which could pose greater risks for a larger number of companies.

An article by a couple of regular CLIP Board contributors published earlier this year in Privacy Law International notes the increasing tendency to regard privacy as a parameter of competition, and explores the risks of collusive conduct being identified in relation to the terms of privacy policies. Is there a risk of a future information exchange case around the treatment of data privacy? Could a concerted practice be found where companies benchmark their privacy policies against each other? Would this be as serious a concern as exchanges relating to future pricing intentions?

Read on for our views on all of these questions here.