'Consumers and businesses in digital markets – An unequal relationship?’ (15 October 2020, webinar organized by the Swedish Consumer Agency/Scientific Council/Maastricht Law&Tech Lab): webinar recording available.

During the webinar, 322 attendees were watching the event live, with 470 participants registered in total. This shows a growing interest in topics at the intersection of consumer decision-making, algorithmic governance, data protection and competition law. In the audience were representatives from various departments of the Swedish, Swiss and Austrian Governments to name a few, authorities from around the world (consumer, competition, data protection, tax, discrimination, etc.) consumer organisations, the business sector, academia, as well as supranational policy-makers. The speaker line-up included:

• Dr. Harry Brignull, User Experience Specialist and founder of darkpatterns.org.
• Hans Micklitz, Professor of Economic Law, Helsinki University
• Natali Helberger,  Professor of Information Law, University of Amsterdam
• Anna Barker, Competition Expert, OECD
• Andreas Maaloe Jespersen, Specialist, Danish Competition and Consumer Authority
• Arunesh Mathur, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Princeton University
• Carolina Brånby, Director Digital Policy, Confederation of Swedish Enterprise
• Werner Stengg, Cabinet Expert for Digital Policy, European Commission
• Antonina Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Professor of European Law, Stockholm University
• Poja Shams, Associate professor, Karlstad University Service Research Center
• Sofia Stigmar, Lawyer, Swedish Trade Federation
• Sinan Akdag, Digital expert, The Swedish Consumers' Association
• Rohan Grove, Director of Behavioural Insight, UK Competition and Markets Authority
• Dries Cuijpers, Senior Enforcement Officer, NL Authority for Consumers & Markets

The recording of the webinar is now available at youtu.be, and the reading companion for the webinar, which will stay available on the website of the Maastricht Law & Tech Lab is available at maastrichtuniversity.nl/consumer-protection-resource-center

The webinar reflects a successful collaboration between distinguished representatives of the Swedish Consumer Agency (Cecilia Tisell, Director General; Kristine Blom, Project leader; Antonina Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Professor of European Law at Stockholm University and member of the Swedish Consumer Agency’s Scientific Council), and consumer forensics researchers from Maastricht Law&Tech Lab (Constanta Rosca, PhD researcher; Bogdan Covrig, research assistant; Alexandru Amariei, research assistant; Alexandru Sotropa, PhD researcher; and Catalina Goanta, Lab co-manager). With this event, we kickstart and support a long-term collaboration between interdisciplinary academia (law, behavioural science and computer science) and national/supranational authorities in the field of digital market monitoring and the enforcement of consumer regulation.