Power practice questions.

Under the EU Digital Markets Act, applicable from 2023, an operator designated as a gatekeeper must let business users tell customers about cheaper offers available outside its store. Which shift of power is that obligation designed to produce?

• from the store operator to the businesses selling through it
• from the store operator to the device manufacturers that preinstall it
• from the businesses selling through the store to their customers
• from advertisers to the users whose attention they compete for

Answer: from the store operator to the businesses selling through it

Anti-steering rules had let the operator control both the storefront and the terms on which sellers could talk to their own customers, so removing them returns pricing leverage to the sellers. Whether prices actually change depends on enforcement, which is a separate question from the text of the obligation.

A state administration, acting on central direction, orders operators to suspend mobile, fixed-line and internet services, as happened in Jammu and Kashmir from August 2019. Whose power is most directly increased while the suspension lasts?

• advertisers, whose competition for attention briefly disappears
• mobile operators, who can charge more while service is scarce
• the ordering authority, which controls what can be reported
• local journalists, who regain readers for printed publications

Answer: the ordering authority, which controls what can be reported

A shutdown converts control over infrastructure into control over information and coordination, because one order under the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services Rules 2017 silences reporting, protest logistics and ordinary commerce at once. The operators are instruments here rather than beneficiaries; they lose revenue and keep the reputational cost.

Content moderators reviewing material for a large social media platform were employed through an outsourcing company in Nairobi, Kenya, and brought legal claims from 2022 over pay and working conditions. Which feature of that arrangement most reduced their bargaining power?

• the moderators reviewed content in several languages at once
• the platform set the rules but was not their formal employer
• the platform published its community standards on its website
• the moderators reviewed content the platform's classifiers had flagged

Answer: the platform set the rules but was not their formal employer

Outsourcing separates the party that sets the targets and the policies from the party that holds the employment contract, so the workers can bargain only with the contractor. Naming the employment structure, rather than the volume of work, is what identifies where the power sits.

In January 2021 two mobile application stores removed a social network from their listings and its cloud host withdrew service, and the network stayed unavailable for about a month. Which feature of the digital environment does the episode illustrate?

• a social network becomes unlawful once it is removed from app stores
• a service depends on a few suppliers it does not control
• cloud hosts are legally responsible for what their customers publish
• users of a removed service are moved automatically to a competitor

Answer: a service depends on a few suppliers it does not control

Distribution and hosting are separate markets, yet both are concentrated, so a service can lose its route to users and its infrastructure in the same week without any court being involved. Whether that outcome is desirable is a separate question from the structural fact that so few firms can make the decision.

A public authority buys an automated risk-scoring system whose scoring rules the supplier treats as a trade secret; a court in the Netherlands halted the SyRI risk-scoring system on comparable grounds in February 2020. Which shift of power does the arrangement create?

• people scored cannot see the rules that classify them
• the supplier becomes liable for every incorrect decision
• the authority loses the ability to set eligibility criteria
• people scored gain a right to a second automated assessment

Answer: people scored cannot see the rules that classify them

Commercial confidentiality removes the reason-giving that an administrative decision normally carries, so the person affected cannot contest a classification even where a right of appeal formally exists. The Hague court framed this as a failure of transparency and proportionality rather than as a defect of the software.

In January 2021 WhatsApp announced a privacy-policy update, and millions of users installed Signal or Telegram in protest, yet most kept using WhatsApp. Which source of the operator's power does the episode best reveal?

• the operator can charge users a fee before allowing them to close an account
• national telecommunications law prevents subscribers from changing messenger
• each user's contacts are on the service, so leaving alone means losing reach
• rival messaging apps are barred from the app stores on most smartphones

Answer: each user's contacts are on the service, so leaving alone means losing reach

Network effects mean the value of a messenger lies in who else is on it, so exit is costly even when a substitute is free and already installed. The error is locating platform power only in contracts or law: here the lock-in is social, produced by everyone else's staying.