How to Tame the Beast? Toward a ‘Regulation Revolution’ in the Digital Platform Economy

Abstract

Sulyok discusses legal and regulatory issues that arise in a ‘platform context.’ The author contrasts some of the natural drivers nurturing the digital platform ecosystem and incentivizing technological progress, and testing the limits of nations as digital regulators. The ‘IT-debate,’ which nowadays revolves around how to tackle growing pressures by recent IT developments, has gained weight in public discourse. In discussing essential state functions in a digital context, relevant questions for legal scholars, regulators, and economists are addressed, including when and to what extent States should regulate digital markets to set rights and delimit possible violations that range from privacy to freedom of speech. As States breach the digital barrier through technological evolution, the concept of sovereignty emerges in the digital sphere which leads to a ‘regulatory revolution’ that materializes in increased regulation of big data, much scrutizined actions of the ‘big five,’ and algorithmic decision-making, among others. A long-standing question in the legal community is whether law has primacy over policy or vice versa. However, in today’s digital context, the question should rather be whether the platform economy has primacy over law (politics and policy) or whether it should be the other way around.