Entering the 21st Century: Competition Policy in the World of B2B ElectronicMarketplaces

摘要

B2Bs are business-to-business electronic marketplaces that use the Internet toelectronically connect businesses to each other. They have been characterized as the new business development most likely to transform how business is conducted in the twenty-first century. Largely unheard of only a few years ago, B2Bs are now estimated to handle billions of dollars in purchases, and although it is difficult to gauge the reliability of such predictions, some estimate that the volume of commerce transacted through B2Bs will reach into the trillions of dollars over the next five years. Given the importance of this new business development, the Federal Trade Commission drew upon its unique mission 'to study competition and work with the business community and others to detect new trends' and hosted a B2B public workshop, 'Competition Policy in the World of B2B Electronic Marketplaces,' on June 29 and 30, 2000. Workshop participants characterized B2Bs as both the result of and contributing to larger trends in economy that are already in progress, such as the advent of new technologies and the increasing globalization of markets. The Internet technology that powers B2bs is potentially transformative in that it can speed business-to-business communications into 'real-time' transactions, conducted globally, with heightened accuracy and reduced waste, thus increasing the nation's productivity. This Staff Report seeks to summarize what was learned at the workshop and to lay the foundation for understanding how to answer traditional antitrust questions in the context of new B2B technology.