To ensure contestability and fairness in digital markets, policy makers worldwide discuss whether interoperability obligations are an appropriate regulatory tool to achieve these goals. Thereby, interoperability is often not narrowly defined, and can range from forms of data portability to complete standardisation of interfaces so that consumers can interact across the boundaries of a given service. In this report, we adopt a wide view on interoperability obligations in the context of digital markets that is not confined to the narrow contexts of previous or ongoing competition law cases or the specific interoperability provisions discussed in the Digital Markets Act (DMA). This allows us to derive a more general framework on the scope and effect of interoperability as a regulatory instrument for digital markets that can feed back into the ongoing policy considerations.

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