Price discrimination is common in many different types of markets, whether online or offline, and even among firms with no market power; it usually reflects the competitive behaviour that competition policy seeks to promote (either by incentivising firms to serve more consumers, or by increasing the incentive to compete) and hence has no anti-competitive purpose or effect. However, price discrimination can sometimes be a concern, for example if it has exploitative, distortionary or exclusionary effects.
In recent years, the scope for near perfect price discrimination in the digital economy appears to have grown, and there has been debate as to whether the rules and case law that apply to distortionary effects of price discrimination have an economic basis.
In November 2016, the OECD held a roundtable to discuss how jurisdictions in which exploitative or distortionary price discrimination is an offence should respond to these developments.
