However, rapid growth in this area also presents risks to the wellbeing of consumers and markets. Additionally, digital markets have dramatically reduced entry barriers for some types of business, heightened competition and provides any business with access to a global pool of customers.
For consumers, the move to digital markets has reduced friction, increased transparency and comparability and opened access to a truly global marketplace. Online commerce brings great benefits to businesses and consumers. This paper is not intended to act as guidance for businesses and their advisors, or to determine how the CMA will act in future cases and investigations where OCA plays a role, especially with regards to remedies. The paper is not intended to be exhaustive but provides a review of the evidence available at the time of publication. There will be a range of audiences for this paper including those working in competition and consumer authorities, academics, practitioners including designers and technologists, as well as those working within and advising businesses. The paper also outlines the evidence on prevalence of OCA practices as well as selected cross-cutting issues related to OCA, for example vulnerability of consumers.
It provides summaries of the evidence on 21 OCA practices (for example, defaults), organised into 3 sections: Choice Structure, Choice Information, Choice Pressure. This paper is intended to be used as a reference document. Competition and consumer authorities necessarily need to identify and address detriment, so this paper focuses on the harms that can arise from OCA practices. OCA is often used positively to help consumers, for example, by displaying relevant products prominently and to streamline friction. Online choice architecture (OCA) describes the environment in which users act and make decisions, including the presentation and placement of choices and the design of interfaces. This is a companion paper, which provides underpinning evidence to support the CMA publication, Online Choice Architecture: how digital design can harm competition and consumers (referred to as “the discussion paper”).
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