COMPARATIVE LAW EXPERIENCES: REFUSAL FROM SERVICE PROVIDERS 221 3. INTERNET INTERMEDIARIES Notwithstanding, OTAs constitute typical Internet intermediaries which have gained ground at the expense of brick-and-mortar shops. Their activity basically consists on the supply of final tourist services through the commercial promotion on their website of various offers available in the market, enabling customers to access a wide range of services (hotel rooms, airline tickets, package tours, etc.) via a unique platform. On the one hand, these platforms provide separate services to consumers, mainly price comparison, search facility and product review; on the other hand, they give suppliers an attractive showcase and the opportunity to contact a large number of consumers. This two-fold function is a common feature of platforms as two-sided markets, whose primary value lies in the facilitation of the transactions among economic agents such as upstream suppliers and downstream consumers10. In the case of OTAs, there is a high degree of heterogeneity among potential users, the costs for switching from one platform to another are generally low, and multihoming is easy. In other words, travellers can easily search for services such as hotels or flights, over more than one platform before booking, and providers (e.g. airlines or hotels) can easily be listed on several OTAs, and thus the free- -riding problem requires attention11. 4. OTHER EXAMPLES IN COMPARATIVE TOURISM LAW a) Big tech firms push back against possible EU antitrust reforms, MLex, 14 December 2018 “Booking.comWeighs in on the need for further EU Regulation”: along with other technology giants, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Spotify, Booking.com submitted last week its response to a European Commission consultation seeking feedback on whether current EU competition rules needed updating to deal with the evolving digital economy. Not surprisingly, the technology platforms 10 See J. Haucap and T. Stühmeier, ‘Competition and Antitrust in Internet Markets’, DICE Discussion Paper, in J. Bauer and M. Latzer (eds), Handbook on the Economics of the Internet [Edward Elgar (forthcoming)], 7 (arguing that, together with OTAs, search engine users can also easily switch away from one to another, whereas, switching costs between social networks such as Facebook are generally much higher because of strong direct network effects and the effort needed to coordinate user groups). 11 See Haucap and T. Stühmeier, ‘Competition and Antitrust in Internet Markets’, DICE Discussion Paper, in J. Bauer and M. Latzer (eds), Handbook on the Economics of the Internet.
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