CADE discusses competition in digital ecosystems

On 19 February, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) hosted a public hearing to discuss digital ecosystems related to iOS and Android operating systems.

Authorities of government bodies, representatives of the business sector, and members of the civil society and academia participated in the event to debate competition aspects regarding iOS, by Apple, and Android, by Google, as well as their respective application stores, App Store and Google Play.

In the opening session, Alexandre Cordeiro, president of CADE, highlighted the importance of an in-depth analysis on the matter. "We are experiencing a time marked by discussions on the regulation of digital markets. The main idea of this meeting is 'to shed light' on this matter, reducing information asymmetry to allow the antitrust authority, within its competence, to make the decisions that best serve the public interest”, he stated.

Lílian Cintra, chief of the Secretariat for Digital Rights at the Ministry of Justice, described the meeting as a "gateway for innovation" and mentioned that the challenging nature of digital markets has been widely discussed at various levels, with the aim of improving them. "The information presented here will be useful so that CADE, which has always been open to dialogue, can make progress on this issue," she said.

Alexandre Barreto, superintendent general at CADE; André Freire, attorney general at CADE; Diogo Thomson, Victor Fernandes, José Levi, and Camila Pires-Alves, commissioners at CADE; Guilherme Guimarães, lawyer member of the Office of the General Counsel for the Brazilian Federal Government (AGU); and Carlos Almeida, representative of the Brazilian Central Bank (BACEN) were also present in the session.

In the second part of the public hearing, representatives of the business sector delivered oral presentations: Apple Inc., Google Inc., Epic Games Inc., Match Group Inc., Zetta, Coalition for App Fairness, the Brazilian Association of Digital Communication Agencies (ABRANET), and FS Security.

Then, members of the civil society and academia presented their statements along with interventions from the following organizations: the Net Rights Coalition (CDR), Article 19, Proteste | Euroconsumers-Brasil, the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Defense (IDEC), Data Privacy, Sleeping Giants Brazil, the Centre for E-Commerce Studies, and the Centre for Technology and Society of FGV Direito Rio, and also researchers from the European Commission (Research Centre) and University of Glasgow. Finally, Commissioner Camila Pires-Alves led the closing session.

The contributions will be made into a working paper and available on CADE's website.

The public hearing is available on CADE's Youtube channel!