Data portability, data disclosure and data-induced switching costs: Some unintended consequences of the General Data Protection Regulation

We develop a simple game-theoretic model to demonstrate that with the new General Data Protection Regulation’s (GDPR) right to port data between content providers (CPs), (i) the incumbent CP has less incentives to preserve users’ privacy, (ii) a new entrant CP will charge higher prices for its service, and (iii) customers of the new CP are worse off, while customers of the incumbent CP are better off. •We develop a two-period model to model consumer switching between content providers.•Switching costs are constituted by the effort to re-enter data at the new provider.•The right to data portability under the GDPR drives switching costs to zero.•This would increase the incumbent’s incentives to disclose user data in the first period.•While customers of the incumbent are better off, customers of the entrant are worse off.