Antitrust and the Robo-Seller: Competition in the Time of Algorithms

Posted by Social Science Research Network

Antitrust and the Robo-Seller: Competition in the Time of Algorithms–  Salil K. Mehra Temple University)

Abstract: Increasingly, firms are knitting together newly available mass data collection, Internet-driven interconnective power, and automated algorithmic selling with their traditional supply-chain and sales functions. Traditional sales functions such as competitive intelligence gathering and pricing are being delegated to software “robo-sellers.” This Article offers the first descriptive and normative study of the implications of this shift away from humans to machines (the “robo-sellers”) for antitrust law. This change is a critical challenge for antitrust law – both in how it is currently applied and in highlighting and exacerbating its existing weaknesses.