Recital 27

In sectors characterised by the concentration of a small number of manufacturers supplying connected products to end users, there may only be limited options available to users for the access to and the use and sharing of data. In such circumstances, contracts may be insufficient to achieve the objective of user empowerment, making it difficult for users to obtain value from the data generated by the connected product they purchase, rent or lease. Consequently, there is limited potential for innovative smaller businesses to offer data-based solutions in a competitive manner and for a diverse data economy in the Union. This Regulation should therefore build on recent developments in specific sectors, such as the Code of Conduct on agricultural data sharing by contract. Union or national law may be adopted to address sector-specific needs and objectives. Furthermore, data holders should not use any readily available data that is non-personal data in order to derive insights about the economic situation of the user or its assets or production methods or about such use by the user in any other manner that could undermine the commercial position of that user on the markets in which it is active. This could include using knowledge about the overall performance of a business or a farm in contractual negotiations with the user on the potential acquisition of the user’s products or agricultural produce to the user’s detriment, or using such information to feed into larger databases on certain markets in the aggregate, for example databases on crop yields for the upcoming harvesting season, as such use could affect the user negatively in an indirect manner. The user should be given the necessary technical interface to manage permissions, preferably with granular permission options such as ‘allow once’ or ‘allow while using this app or service’, including the option to withdraw such permissions.