By Ian Brown
Abstract
The first paper in this series, Interoperability as a tool for competition regulation, focused on policy issues. This second paper looks at the technical details and requirements of interoperability in practice. The third paper will analyse the impact of interoperability on phenomena such as disinformation and privacy (preliminarily covered in the first paper). As well as a review of relevant policy and computer science literature, these papers draw on 10 semi-structured interviews with software developers, platform operators, technical standards experts, current and former government officials, and academic and civil society experts working in this field. This paper is intended to support civil society and parliamentary groups developing positions on ex ante competition rules in the EU’s proposed Digital Services Act, and digital competition reforms in other jurisdictions.