Martin d’Halluin (News Corp) : Antitrust and Data

In which ways is user data important for digital platforms ? Data is essential for tech companies. This was very hard to predict even ten years ago. All online services are now powered by data whether it is personal data or pricing data. And often it is a good thing : data helps to improve and customize products and services. Access to data and the ability to scale powered the recent rise of large platforms. No one knows for sure how data-intensive applications, such as artificial intelligence or self-driving cars, will be monetized but we already know the two industries where data already changed everything : advertising, where targeted advertising took over the industry and benefited the players with the largest volumes of data, and online retail, where data play a huge role. Does