Ms Isolde Goggin:

Data mining is a significant issue that concerns us on the competition and consumer protection sides. We are in contact with our fellow competition and consumer protection organisations across Europe. We are working with the telecoms regulator, ComReg, and with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. We are all concerned with what is going on under the bonnet. We are all concerned about understanding how companies are using these things. We are certainly aware of at least two ways in which it can be detrimental to consumers, the first of which is the area of personalised pricing, which arises when people use the same website and the same IP address to look for goods and services online. The website operators keep the data. They know perfectly well what it is like. I always mention as an analogy that when I come back to work every January, I google sun holidays in Lanzarote in February. They know perfectly well how much I am willing to pay because they know how much I have paid in the past. The pricing can be tailored to the individual person in a way that extracts as much value as possible. That is the first area. The second area involves algorithmic collusion. There are only so many software companies that develop the algorithms used in online bookings. We are concerned because they check what the other websites are doing all the time. They continually check what is happening on the other websites. Is it possible for the algorithms to achieve a kind of collusive outcome by reaching an equilibrium whereby the websites will not reduce their prices further because they think they do not need to do so? If they charge a higher price, nobody will go to them. They end up at a price that may not be the competitive price. It is question of trying to get under the bonnet to understand what is going on.