The relationship between competition and consumer policy has long been grounded in a shared objective: promoting consumer welfare through well-functioning markets (OECD, 2008[1]). While the interaction between the two policy domains is not new, it has gained renewed relevance in the context of digital markets. Digitalisation has profoundly transformed both how firms compete and how consumers interact with markets, amplifying the potential benefits of innovation, efficiency, and choice, while at the same time increasing consumer risks and challenges and the entrenchment of market power. As a result, the boundaries between competition and consumer policy concerns have become increasingly porous (Tonazzi, 2025[2]).
The interaction between competition and consumer policy is particularly salient today because the economic and legal assumptions underpinning both fields have been discussed over the past decade (OECD, 2022[3]). First, digital platforms now play a central role in structuring interactions between consumers and businesses. They shape access to information and frame consumer choice through increasingly sophisticated data-driven and algorithmic mechanisms that were marginal or far less developed ten years ago. According to the OECD Going Digital Toolkit, in 2024, more than 75% of internet users in OECD jurisdictions purchased goods and services online and around 77% of businesses had a web presence, showing how relevant transactions in online markets have become (OECD, 2026[4]).1 Second, practices such as personalised pricing, self-preferencing, misleading or deceptive online choice architecture,2 and data-based lock-in may influence (sometimes significantly) consumer behaviour while simultaneously reinforcing market power and raising barriers to entry. In digital markets, these practices may have a far broader potential to impact consumers than in offline markets, as firms can exploit behavioural biases with unprecedented precision, adjusting market features such as prices dynamically, and experimenting on users in real time. While some of the conduct issues at stake, including self-preferencing and misleading commercial practices, have analogues in brick-and-mortar markets, digitalisation has introduced qualitatively new dimensions: in particular, the ability to personalise not only prices but also product design, bundling and interface presentation at the individual level, and the capacity to exploit consumers' cognitive biases with a precision and scale that was previously unattainable. Third, regulators and policymakers have increasingly recognised that traditional ex-post competition law tools may be slow to address fast-moving and systemic conduct in digital markets. This has prompted an emerging trend in legal frameworks acknowledging that effective market contestability and meaningful consumer choice are interdependent objectives. Recent legislative and enforcement developments illustrate one possible reaction bringing consumer and competition considerations together more explicitly (UNCTAD, 2021[5]). While a few years ago the discussion was led by the need and the design of new regulatory frameworks, today those frameworks are now in place in some OECD jurisdictions and have the potential to shape digital businesses behaviour and market dynamics generating new challenges from a policy perspective, particularly regarding their interaction with existing competition and consumer protection tools (OECD, 2024[6]).
Digital markets have distinctive features, including extensive data collection and processing, algorithmic decision making, economies of scale and scope, and the growing role of intermediation (OECD, 2024[7]; 2025[8]). This has led to new business models that deliver significant consumer benefits, such as lower search costs, personalised services and more efficient transactions. At the same time, these features create complex and information-rich environments in which consumers’ decisions are increasingly shaped by interface design, personalised content and targeted advertising. The growing sophistication of online choice architecture has become a key channel through which both competitive dynamics and consumer outcomes are influenced, making it particularly timely to examine how these mechanisms operate in digital markets today. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are further reshaping digital markets and reinforcing the interlinkages between competition and consumer policy. AI is increasingly embedded in core market functions such as pricing, ranking and recommendation systems, where it supports operational efficiency, innovation and data-driven decision making, thereby influencing firms’ competitive strategies (OECD, 2025[8]; 2024[7]; Gunawan, 2025[9]). At the same time, AI-driven tools are transforming consumer behaviour through real-time responsiveness, personalised marketing and demand forecasting, enabling more tailored interactions while also raising ethical concerns related to data privacy, algorithmic bias and transparency (Gunawan, 2025[9]). In parallel, the emergence of agentic AI systems capable of acting on behalf of humans introduces new forms of intermediation, which may both enhance consumer agency and shift decision making away from users, raising issues of transparency and bias (OECD, 2025[8]).
In this environment, practices that affect how choices are presented to consumers may have a dual impact. On the one hand, the design of online interfaces can enhance consumer experience and generate efficiencies; on the other, it may steer behaviour in non-transparent ways, limit effective choice, or exploit behavioural biases, thereby constraining consumer agency (Nokhiz and Ruwanpathirana, 2025[10]).
New digital frameworks and enforcement initiatives have begun to integrate consumer and competition objectives more closely, raising questions about the complementarities between the two policy domains as well as the limits of each framework when applied in isolation. As competition and consumer protection authorities have acknowledged the growing interdependence of their actions, co-operation between them has also gradually emerged. Most joint initiatives so far have taken the form of advocacy efforts aimed at identifying synergies, whereas enforcement activity continues to occur largely in parallel rather than jointly. Against this backdrop, a renewed and integrated legal analysis is timely to assess how consumer protection tools may complement competition law in addressing forms of digital market power that could not have been fully anticipated a decade ago.
This paper examines the areas of interaction between competition and consumer policy in digital markets. It does not focus on any specific type of market or actor but adopts a broad perspective on digital markets more generally.3 The paper aims to identify where the two policy frameworks address similar concerns, where they may be better suited to tackle different aspects of digital market behaviour, and where gaps or co-ordination challenges may arise. The paper does not, moreover, provide a detailed assessment of the relevant provisions of ex-ante regulatory regimes adopted across different jurisdictions.4 Similarly, and in light of the fact that the interaction between competition and data privacy, as well as the impact of AI have been the subject of recent OECD publications, these matters are likewise beyond the scope of this paper.
Following this introduction, Section 2 outlines the objectives of competition and consumer policy and discusses how digital market features affect their application. It also presents some discussions around practices in which both policies interact. Section 3 shows some areas where authorities have explored synergies between both policies, discusses areas where greater co-operation between consumer protection and competition authorities may be needed to understand the full impact of certain behaviour, as well as presents alternatives. This latter includes the possibility of tackling some issues more accurately through one of the two policies as well as areas that could benefit from a joint approach based on the concept of consumer agency. Section 4 provides concluding remarks.
Other previous related work includes roundtables on The intersection between competition and data privacy (2024[11]), Applying Behavioural Insights to Consumer and Competition Policy and Enforcement (2023[12]), Theories of Harm for Digital Mergers (2023[13]), Algorithmic Competition (2023[14]), Integrating Consumer Behaviour Insights in Competition Enforcement (2022[15]), Dark Commercial Patterns (2022[3]) – from the Committee on Consumer Policy, Consumer Data Rights and Competition (2020[16]), Personalised Pricing in the Digital Era (2018[17]), Quality Considerations in the Zero-price Economy (2018[18]), Designing and Testing Effective Consumer-facing Remedies (2018[19]), Competition in Financial Consumer Protection (2014[20]) and The Interface between Competition and Consumer Policies (2008[1]). When relevant, the paper will cross-reference previous work to avoid duplication.