Competition Law and Future Oversight of Trust-Driven Ecosystems

1. Introduction

A trust-driven ecosystem is a market environment in which users, businesses, and complementary service providers depend heavily on a platform, intermediary, certification system, reputation mechanism, identity layer, data infrastructure, payment system, or other trusted institution to transact with one another.

Examples include:

• digital identity and authentication systems;
• app stores and operating systems;
• online marketplaces and seller-rating systems;
• payment and financial-trust networks;
• cloud and cybersecurity ecosystems;
• professional certification and verification platforms;
• AI/model-validation ecosystems;
• reputation and review platforms;
• digital advertising and data ecosystems; and
• interoperability and data-portability infrastructures.

The competition-law problem arises when trust itself becomes a source of market power. A firm may not merely control a product or infrastructure; it may control the mechanism through which users decide whom to trust, which service is safe, which provider is legitimate, and which information is credible.

Future competition oversight will therefore increasingly have to examine whether a dominant undertaking can convert accumulated trust into entry barriers, exclusion, self-preferencing, tying, discriminatory access, interoperability restrictions, or ecosystem-wide leverage.

Recent regulatory developments already show this direction. The UK CMA has designated both Apple and Google as having strategic market status in their mobile platforms and is examining app distribution, browsers, interoperability, ranking and data practices. The EU Digital Markets Act likewise expressly addresses interoperability and data portability in mobile ecosystems.

2. Meaning of a Trust-Driven Ecosystem

A trust-driven ecosystem generally contains four interconnected elements:

A. Trust infrastructure

This includes:

• authentication;
• verification;
• ratings;
• certification;
• identity systems;
• security standards;
• fraud detection;
• payment assurance; and
• reputation mechanisms.

B. Gatekeeper or intermediary

A central undertaking may control access to the trusted infrastructure.

Examples include:

• app stores;
• marketplaces;
• payment systems;
• operating systems;
• search engines;
• cloud platforms;
• professional platforms.

C. Complementary businesses

Third parties depend upon the trusted infrastructure to reach consumers.

For example:

operating system → app store → developers → users → payment system → data → reputation.

D. Network effects

The more participants use the ecosystem, the more valuable its trust mechanism becomes.

This can generate a trust network effect:

More users → more transactions → more data/reputation → greater perceived reliability → more users → greater dependence → higher entry barriers.

3. Why Trust Can Become a Competition Problem

Trust is normally beneficial to competition. It reduces transaction costs and uncertainty.

However, a dominant undertaking may potentially transform trust into an exclusionary instrument.

Possible mechanism

Control over trust mechanism

↓

Control over verification/reputation

↓

Dependence of users and businesses

↓

Difficulty of switching

↓

Reduced competitive pressure

↓

Ability to discriminate against rivals

↓

Ecosystem-wide market power

The crucial competition-law question is therefore not:

“Is trust valuable?”

It is:

“Is control over trust being used to restrict competition in a market or across interconnected markets?”

4. Principal Competition Concerns

A. Trust-Based Entry Barriers

An incumbent may accumulate a reputation that new competitors cannot easily reproduce.

A new entrant may have:

• fewer users;
• less historical data;
• fewer ratings;
• less transaction history;
• weaker verification infrastructure; and
• lower consumer confidence.

This can create a trust-based barrier to entry even where the underlying technology is replicable.

Competition authorities may therefore need to distinguish between:

1. legitimate reputation earned through superior performance; and
2. artificially protected reputation resulting from exclusionary conduct.

5. Self-Preferencing Through Trust Mechanisms

A platform may control both:

• the trust infrastructure; and
• a competing downstream service.

It could potentially give its own service:

• preferred verification;
• superior ranking;
• earlier access to trusted-status information;
• lower fraud thresholds;
• better visibility;
• preferential certification; or
• greater access to reputation data.

This resembles the broader self-preferencing concerns examined in digital-platform enforcement.

The European Commission has investigated self-preferencing and steering practices involving major digital gatekeepers under the DMA.

6. Trust Lock-In

Trust can create switching costs that are different from conventional contractual switching costs.

For example, a business moving from one platform to another might lose:

• customer ratings;
• verified identity;
• transaction history;
• seller reputation;
• customer reviews;
• authentication credentials;
• fraud-prevention history; or
• accumulated professional status.

Consequently, data portability becomes competition policy.

The EU's DMA specifically treats data portability as an important element of contestability because users may hesitate to switch if important accumulated data cannot move with them.

7. Interoperability and Trust

Future competition regulation is likely to place greater emphasis on trust interoperability.

Suppose Platform A has:

100 million verified identities

while Platform B has:

5 million verified identities.

If Platform A refuses interoperability, Platform B may have to rebuild the entire trust network.

This can make entry economically unrealistic.

Therefore, future regulation may require dominant ecosystem operators, in appropriate circumstances, to permit:

• identity portability;
• authentication interoperability;
• API access;
• verification portability;
• reputation portability;
• secure data exchange; and
• interoperability with competing services.

The EU's DMA already contains interoperability obligations concerning certain gatekeeper services, while the UK CMA's current mobile-platform work includes interoperable access.

8. Trust as an Essential Facility

Traditional essential-facility doctrine normally concerns physical or technical infrastructure.

Future disputes may concern intangible infrastructure.

Examples could include:

• a dominant identity-verification network;
• a critical authentication protocol;
• a unique reputation database;
• a dominant certification infrastructure;
• an industry-wide security network; or
• a trusted API.

The legal difficulty is determining when trust infrastructure is sufficiently indispensable to justify access obligations.

The traditional essential-facility cases therefore remain important.

9. Key Case Laws

1. United Brands v Commission — Case 27/76

The European Court of Justice established important principles concerning dominant position and abuse.

Relevance to trust ecosystems

The case demonstrates that competition law is concerned not merely with monopoly ownership but with how market power is exercised.

For trust-driven ecosystems, the relevant question may therefore be whether a dominant trust intermediary uses its position to impose unfair conditions or exclude competitors.

Principle

A firm possessing substantial market power has special responsibilities not to use that power in a manner that distorts effective competition.

2. Commercial Solvents v Commission — Joined Cases 6/73 and 7/73

This case concerned the refusal to supply an important input to a downstream competitor.

Relevance

Trust ecosystems frequently involve upstream infrastructure and downstream services.

For example:

identity infrastructure → authentication → financial service

If the infrastructure provider also competes downstream, refusal of access can become strategically significant.

Competition principle

A dominant undertaking may not necessarily use control over an upstream input to eliminate competition in a downstream market.

This provides an important conceptual foundation for future trust-infrastructure access cases.

3. Bronner v Mediaprint — Case C-7/97

This is one of the leading European cases concerning refusal of access to an allegedly indispensable facility.

The Court adopted a demanding test for compulsory access.

Importance

The case establishes that mere economic advantage is insufficient. Access obligations require stronger circumstances, including genuine indispensability and the absence of viable alternatives.

Application to trust ecosystems

A claimant seeking access to:

• reputation databases;
• authentication networks;
• identity systems;
• proprietary trust APIs; or
• verification infrastructure

would need to demonstrate more than inconvenience.

The facility would potentially have to be indispensable for effective competition.

4. IMS Health v Commission — Case C-418/01

IMS Health concerned access to a commercially valuable information structure and intellectual-property-related infrastructure.

Relevance

Trust ecosystems increasingly depend upon structured information.

Examples include:

• historical transaction data;
• verified identities;
• consumer reputation;
• professional credentials;
• technical certification data.

IMS Health is important because it illustrates the tension between property rights and competition access obligations.

Future significance

Competition authorities may have to determine when control over an information infrastructure becomes sufficiently important to justify interoperability or access.

5. Google Shopping — Google Search (Shopping), Case AT.39740

The European Commission found that Google had abused its dominant position by favouring its own comparison-shopping service in general search results.

The case is significant for trust-driven ecosystems because search ranking itself can function as a trust allocation mechanism.

Users frequently interpret prominent placement as an indicator of relevance or reliability.

Competition lesson

Control over a central access point can allow a platform to influence competitive conditions in downstream markets.

Future application

Similar theories could arise where a platform controls:

• verified badges;
• trusted-provider rankings;
• safety scores;
• reputation rankings;
• certification visibility; or
• algorithmic trust scores.

10. Google Android — Case AT.40099

The European Commission's Android decision involved several forms of conduct, including tying, exclusivity-related incentives and restrictions affecting Android forks. The Commission concluded that Google held a dominant position in the worldwide Android app-store market excluding China.

Importance for trust-driven ecosystems

Android illustrates how several interconnected products can reinforce one another:

Operating system

→ app store

→ apps

→ users

→ data

→ advertising

→ developer dependence

The competition issue is therefore not confined to one product.

Future principle

Competition authorities are increasingly likely to examine ecosystem-level foreclosure, rather than analysing every service in complete isolation.

11. Facebook/Meta – Giphy

The UK CMA's investigation into Facebook's acquisition of Giphy provides an important example of ecosystem expansion through acquisition.

The CMA concluded that the transaction could harm competition in social-media services and digital advertising and required the divestiture of Giphy. The Competition Appeal Tribunal upheld the CMA's decision on five of the six challenged grounds.

Trust-ecosystem relevance

Giphy was an important complementary resource for social platforms.

Control over such a resource could potentially affect:

• platform attractiveness;
• user engagement;
• access by rival platforms;
• innovation; and
• switching between social ecosystems.

The broader lesson is that future merger control may examine acquisitions of apparently small complementary assets where those assets strengthen an ecosystem's network effects.

12. Google Mobile Platform and Apple Mobile Platform — UK CMA

These are particularly relevant to future oversight.

The CMA designated Google's and Apple's mobile platforms as having strategic market status. The investigations cover operating systems, app distribution and browsers, while interventions address areas such as app review, ranking, data use, steering and interoperability.

In 2026, the CMA announced commitments concerning greater certainty and transparency for developers and, for Apple, mechanisms allowing developers to request interoperable access to iOS/iPadOS functionality.

Significance

These developments demonstrate a shift from:

ex post antitrust

toward:

continuous ecosystem supervision.

That model is particularly suited to trust-driven ecosystems because trust relationships and technical dependencies can evolve rapidly.

13. Future Legal Tests for Trust-Driven Ecosystems

Competition authorities could increasingly consider the following factors.

1. Trust dependency

How dependent are users or businesses on the platform's trust infrastructure?

2. Replicability

Can competitors realistically recreate the trust mechanism?

3. Switching costs

Can users transfer their:

• reputation;
• credentials;
• reviews;
• identity;
• transaction history?

4. Interoperability

Can rival services interact with the dominant trust infrastructure?

5. Data accumulation

Does the incumbent continuously accumulate trust-related data unavailable to rivals?

6. Self-preferencing

Does the platform favour its own trusted services?

7. Discriminatory access

Are competing businesses subjected to different verification or trust standards?

8. Algorithmic transparency

Are trust scores or rankings manipulated to disadvantage rivals?

9. Ecosystem expansion

Are acquisitions being used to consolidate complementary trust assets?

10. Consumer deception

Does the platform represent its own service as independently trusted when the trust designation is internally controlled?

14. Future Oversight Model

A future competition framework could operate through five stages.

Stage 1 — Identify the Trust Layer

Determine whether the relevant market contains a:

• verification layer;
• identity layer;
• reputation layer;
• certification layer;
• security layer; or
• authentication layer.

Stage 2 — Identify the Gatekeeper

Determine who controls access to the trust layer.

Stage 3 — Measure Dependency

Assess:

• switching costs;
• network effects;
• interoperability;
• data portability;
• multi-homing; and
• availability of alternatives.

Stage 4 — Examine Conduct

Investigate:

• exclusion;
• tying;
• bundling;
• self-preferencing;
• discriminatory access;
• refusal to interoperate;
• predatory or exclusionary pricing;
• data exploitation; and
• strategic acquisitions.

Stage 5 — Select Remedies

Possible remedies include:

• interoperability;
• data portability;
• API access;
• non-discrimination;
• transparency obligations;
• separation of functions;
• behavioural commitments;
• monitoring trustees;
• access obligations; and, in exceptional circumstances,
• structural remedies.

15. Ex Ante Regulation Versus Traditional Antitrust

Traditional competition law usually asks:

Has anti-competitive conduct occurred?

Trust-driven ecosystems may require a second question:

Does the structure of the ecosystem create predictable opportunities for anti-competitive conduct?

This explains the emergence of ex ante digital-market regulation.

The EU DMA requires designated gatekeepers to comply with obligations relating to interoperability and data portability, while the UK DMCC regime enables continuing oversight of firms designated with strategic market status.

16. Algorithmic Trust and AI

The next major challenge is likely to involve algorithmically generated trust.

AI systems can determine:

• which seller is trustworthy;
• which financial applicant is reliable;
• which content source is credible;
• which cybersecurity provider is safe;
• which professional is verified;
• which product should receive a trust badge.

If one dominant company controls the algorithm, data and infrastructure determining these outcomes, it could possess algorithmic trust power.

Potential competition concerns include:

• discriminatory ranking;
• exclusion of rival providers;
• manipulation of trust scores;
• opaque verification;
• preferential treatment of affiliated businesses;
• feedback loops; and
• algorithmic foreclosure.

17. Reputation Portability

A particularly important future remedy is reputation portability.

Imagine a seller with:

10,000 verified transactions + 4.9/5 reputation

on Platform A.

If that seller moves to Platform B and starts with:

0 transactions + no reputation,

Platform A effectively possesses a powerful switching barrier.

Future competition regulation could therefore consider whether verified reputation should be portable in certain markets.

However, portability would have to protect:

• privacy;
• cybersecurity;
• intellectual property;
• fraud prevention;
• data accuracy; and
• consumer protection.

18. Trust Concentration and Merger Control

Merger control may increasingly examine acquisitions involving:

• identity providers;
• cybersecurity firms;
• reputation platforms;
• verification services;
• payment authentication systems;
• AI trust infrastructure;
• certification databases; and
• data-rich intermediaries.

The concern may arise even when the acquired business has relatively modest current revenues.

This is analogous to the broader concern demonstrated by digital acquisitions such as Facebook/Giphy, where the CMA examined the effect of the transaction on ecosystem competition and potential future competition.

19. Remedies for Trust-Driven Ecosystems

A. Interoperability

Allow competing services to communicate with the trust infrastructure.

B. Data portability

Permit users and businesses to move relevant trust data.

C. Non-discrimination

Require equivalent treatment of:

• affiliated services; and
• independent competitors.

D. Transparency

Require explanation of:

• verification;
• ranking;
• suspension;
• certification; and
• trust-score mechanisms.

E. Functional separation

Where necessary, separate the infrastructure operator from downstream competitive activities.

F. Merger scrutiny

Examine acquisitions that increase control over complementary trust assets.

G. Continuous monitoring

Require periodic reporting and compliance audits.

The CMA's recent Apple and Google commitments illustrate this movement toward ongoing monitoring and reporting rather than one-time enforcement.

20. Challenges for Competition Authorities

Future enforcement will face several difficulties.

First: Trust is difficult to quantify

Market share may not adequately measure trust power.

Second: Trust can be legitimate

A company may have genuinely earned consumer confidence through superior quality and security.

Competition law should not punish legitimate competitive success.

Third: Interoperability can create security risks

Opening a trusted system may increase:

• fraud;
• cybersecurity vulnerabilities;
• identity theft; and
• manipulation.

Fourth: Privacy may conflict with portability

Competition remedies cannot simply require unlimited transfer of personal data.

Fifth: Trust evolves rapidly

An ecosystem that is competitive today may become highly concentrated tomorrow.

21. Emerging Concept: “Trust Power”

Traditional competition law focuses heavily on:

market power

Future digital competition law may increasingly have to analyse:

trust power

Trust power can be conceptualised as the ability of an undertaking to influence:

1. who is regarded as legitimate;
2. who receives verification;
3. whose products are considered safe;
4. whose information receives credibility;
5. which businesses obtain access to consumers; and
6. which competing services can participate in the ecosystem.

Thus:

Market power + network effects + data + reputation + verification = potential trust power.

Trust power becomes a competition concern when it is used to exclude or disadvantage rivals rather than merely compete on the merits.

22. Important Principles Emerging from the Case Law

23. Future Direction of Competition Law

The future regulatory approach is likely to move through three conceptual stages:

Traditional model

Product → market share → dominance → abuse

Digital-platform model

Platform → network effects → ecosystem → gatekeeping → foreclosure

Trust-driven ecosystem model

Trust infrastructure → identity/reputation/data → dependency → interoperability → ecosystem power → competition effects

This does not mean that every successful trust mechanism should be regulated. Competition law must distinguish earned trust from strategically protected trust and legitimate security restrictions from exclusionary restrictions.

24. Conclusion

Future oversight of trust-driven ecosystems will require competition law to look beyond conventional market shares and examine control over the infrastructure through which market participants establish credibility, identity, security and reputation.

The leading cases—from United Brands, Commercial Solvents, Bronner and IMS Health to Google Shopping, Google Android and Facebook/Giphy—provide different components of the legal framework: dominance, refusal of access, indispensable infrastructure, information assets, platform self-preferencing, ecosystem leverage and digital merger control.

The most significant future issues are likely to involve:

• trust portability;
• reputation portability;
• interoperable authentication;
• non-discriminatory verification;
• algorithmic trust scores;
• trust-data access;
• ecosystem acquisitions;
• AI-generated trust systems;
• self-preferencing through trust rankings; and
• continuous ex ante supervision of digital gatekeepers.

The central competition-law principle should remain that trust may be a source of legitimate competitive advantage, but control over a critical trust infrastructure can become a competition concern when it is used to foreclose rivals, prevent switching, discriminate against competitors, or extend dominance into adjacent markets. Current EU and UK digital-market regulation shows that competition oversight is already moving toward interoperability, portability, transparency and continuous monitoring of ecosystem conduct.