Manipulation into unsustainable consumer choices as exploitative abuse of dominance

Abstract

This article oscillates around the intersection of sustainability and digital platforms, which is an increasingly important and complex area of study in which digital platforms can have both a positive and a negative influence. The interaction between sustainability and digital platforms is crucial at a time when the EU is promoting the twin transition in its economy, a process that entails focusing on both environmental sustainability and digitalization. Online users should have a chance to buy sustainable products and services through digital platforms. However, environmental issues are becoming more and more pressing, and users are more willing to, among others, compensate for their flight emissions, to buy organic food and to ensure the protection of endangered species. The following question arises: who is responsible for ensuring the sustainability of the products and services that are offered online? Is it consumers, who often feel that they want to be environmentally friendly but choose cheaper products over sustainable ones out of habit? Or is it the government and the EU, which are promoting the twin transition in the first place? I argue that these responsibilities could be allocated through competition law. In particular, the article focuses on the possible manipulation of consumers into overconsumption or the purchase of unsustainable products and services, which could be classified as exploitative abuse of dominance. Consumer welfare (i.e., the well-being of consumers) would be enhanced if consumers could buy more sustainable goods and services or if they were not manipulated into overconsumption. Such a development would cohere with the recent attempts to broaden competition law into non-pricerelated goals that respond to societal needs for transformation (here, the sustainability transition in the face of the environmental crisis). This article is intended to answer the following question: how can different kinds of manipulation into the purchase of unsustainable products and services or overspending be classified as decreasing consumer welfare and, consequently, as exploitative abuses of dominance under EU competition law? For example, digital platforms often nudge consumers into specific behaviours that may not be in their best interests.

Keywords

• Sustainability
• Abuse of dominance
• Manipulation
• Consumer welfare