Closeness of Substitution for ‘Big Data’ in Merger Control

Recent merger cases involving the transfer of control over “big data” concluded that these mergers would not lead to competition problems because there was a sufficient number of other data sources available to the various players in the market. These merger cases implicitly accepted, but never carefully analysed, that these big datasets were close substitutes. As such big data is often not traded, one should look at the big data value chain and assess the closeness of substitution between such big datasets by evaluating to what extent the users of the insights derived from them view those insights as close substitutes. This new approach is illustrated through the examples of the Microsoft/LinkedIn and the Facebook/WhatsApp mergers.