Certification of Business Practices and Algorithms as a Complementary Approach to Platform Regulation

Digital platforms have transformed markets and created considerable value, mostly for their owners. As the Big Tech firms have leveraged their platforms to capture dominant market positions, concerns have been raised about their unfair business practices, abuse of market power, exploitation of stakeholders, and harm to society. Policymakers have sought to apply antitrust law and promote regulation to constrain the dominant platforms, yet the effectiveness of this approach has been limited. We discuss the types of harm inflicted on end users, business users, competitors, and society at large, and we analyze the recent regulation of digital platforms in the United States and the European Union, pointing to its limitations. We proceed by introducing the notion of inspection and certification of business practices and algorithms as a complementary approach that relies on market incentives to encourage competition and align the business practices of digital platforms with the interests of stakeholders. We explain the merits of this approach versus regulation, outline a plan for implementing it while coping with expected challenges, and offer practical recommendations for policymakers.