Big Data: Competition Concerns in a Digital Economy

In the competition law, the ownership and use of large amounts of data acquired online from customers (big data) is a particularly hot topic. One crucial question is whether businesses' access to and use of big data can grant them market power and a competitive advantage over their competitors. In India, innovation and technology-driven businesses like e-commerce, ride-hailing apps, online wallets, and others have been rapidly increasing and experiencing a steady increase in M&A activity, exposing them to potential competition law risks. Data-driven mergers must be scrutinised more closely in today's world when access to customer data may make or break a market player. Data concentration in the hands of a single market player may be devastating for the competitiveness in the relevant market. Jurists across the world have diverse viewpoints on how to successfully solve this problem, and some competition commissions have taken a variety of approaches to handle the challenges provided by the dynamic digital market. There is a need to examine all the varied viewpoints and activities in order to determine what is best for India's completion policy. This paper attempts to analyse the development of big data in the digital market, and how can big data gain a competitive advantage, subsequently with a study about the lacunas in the present merger criteria.