United Kingdom: Summary of consultation responses regarding the detrimental effect of algorithms on competition and consumers

After running a consultation from January 19th 2021 until March 16, 2021 regarding a research paper about algorithms and their effect on consumers and competition in order to improve their own Analysing Algorithms programme, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published the summary of responses to the consultation. Most respondents agreed that the CMA had identified most of the potential harms accurately, while adding certain potential harms and specifying others. However, it was also noted, that a legal analysis with underlying empirical evidence was needed for any investigation into the identified harms. Missing were harms such as consumer harms from firms' increasing use of data and power thereby, as well as economic harms that stem from sharing consumer data, as well as harms to citizens and harms from technologies associated with algorithms, underpinning consumer-facing platforms. Finally, it was noted that existing law could address most of these harms sufficiently but certain revisions may be needed as well as a greater cooperation with other regulators.