Big Tech Research Articles

The DMA’s Consent Moment and its Relationship with the GDPR

Abstract The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is designed to ensure fair and contestable digital markets. With one of the key sources of market power of big tech being data, it is not surprising that it is the subject matter of a number of DMA provisions. Article 5(2) prohibits gatekeepers from engaging in forms of accumulation and cross-use of personal data, unless they receive users’ consent, defined by reference to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Consent as defined by the GDPR suffers from a number of shortcomings, among other things, relating to whether consent can be truly freely given. The DMA tries to address some of the shortcomings by formulating a version of consent that seemingly goes beyond the GDPR. While a new version of consent may ensure greater effectiveness, it raises questions concerning the interaction and compatibility with the GDPR. To shed light on this issue, the paper discusses the role and meaning of consent in the DMA vis-à-vis the GDPR and explores how to interpret consent under both the DMA and GDPR in a manner that is consistent with each other and that accounts for the characteristics of digital markets.

Индия. Формирование регулирования технологических компаний для роста цифровой экономики

India’s government set the goal to grow the country’s digital economy to $1 trillion by 2025–26. Dynamic growth of digitalmarkets is one of the government’s priorities for attaining this goal. Digital platforms are important drivers of growth. Simultaneously,big tech’s non-competitive practices create risks of economic and moral damage for consumers and distort competitionin the markets. India’s authorities shape regulation of the digital markets in two main directions: consumer protectionand prevention digital platform behaviours which might impair competition. To protect consumers, the government hasamended the consumer protection rules and expanded their application to digital enterprises. India adopted the ConsumerProtection Act (2019), the Consumer Protection in E-Commerce Rules (2020), and the Digital Personal Data ProtectionAct (2023). To ensure contestability, fairness, and transparency in digital markets, in 2023 the Competition (Amendment)Act was approved by Parliament, placing digital markets within the legal framework of competition. The Committee on theDigital Competition Law developed a draft Digital Competition Bill (2024) which aims to regulate systemically significantdigital enterprises through an ex ante approach.The article reviews the government of the Republic of India’s policy on digital platform regulation, exploring themain instruments and difficulties in shaping the new system and determining a regulatory approach. The study draws on asurvey of the regulatory bills and rules, reports, bill drafts, experts’ assessments, and research articles. The authors focuson the amendments to the consumer and competition protection laws adopted in recent years. The article concludes withthe authors’ views regarding the adoption of the Digital Competition Bill and perspectives on India’s interest in deepeninginternational cooperation on digital markets regulation, including in the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, SouthAfrica, and others) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The outcome of the US Election will determine the future of Big Tech and data privacy

The outcome of the US Election will determine the future of Big Tech and data privacy

Disintermediation of consumer services through blockchain? The role of intermediary brands, value-added services, and privacy concerns

This paper explores the dynamics between value-added services, intermediary brands, and consumer privacy concerns in shaping attitudes toward blockchain-enabled consumer services. Grounded in the Antecedents-Privacy Concerns-Outcomes (APCO) framework, we develop a theoretical model that we test in three experimental studies with a total of 1613 participants, utilizing verbal scenarios featuring blockchain applications for international money transfer and hotel booking. Our research reveals that complete disintermediation via pure peer-to-peer blockchain transactions is unlikely. Consumers prefer blockchain applications offering supplementary services like call centers, password assistance, and cancellation options. As consumers become familiar with blockchain technology, privacy concerns intensify due to its distributed and immutable storage. The fears of data breaches are more pronounced when blockchain applications are offered by unknown startups as opposed to well-known Big Tech companies. However, privacy-conscious consumers also value the prospect of distancing themselves from big-data ecosystems by embracing blockchain solutions from startups. Our research extends the APCO framework by clarifying how privacy concerns, brand-based heuristics, and technological attributes interact. For managerial implications, blockchain applications necessitate re-intermediation to meet consumer preferences. Potential intermediaries, including Big Tech firms, startups, and industry incumbents, face unique challenges in developing and marketing blockchain-enabled consumer services.

Surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state: a comparative institutional analysis

AbstractWhat is the connection between mass surveillance and institutions of individual agency, freedom, and self-governance? Recent literature on “surveillance capitalism” argues that, over the past two decades, the capitalist Big Tech companies have commodified personal data for profit. This commodification goes beyond gathering information to improve the products provided by the collecting organization directly and entails using data to predict what people will do, the sale of that data, and its use to modify the behaviors of unknowing consumers. According to critics, this erodes individual dignity and freedom while also threatening democracy. This paper offers an alternative framing of surveillance and data collection based on comparative institutional analysis. While data collection and attempts at persuasion are present in private and government settings, the welfare effects vary due to institutional differences. We leverage the comparative institutional framework to analyze the differences between private data collection (“surveillance capitalism”) and government data collection (the “surveillance state”). Our analysis sheds light on how data collection in the private, for-profit sector has different welfare consequences from those in the surveillance state.

Assessing the privacy of digital products in Australian schools: Protecting the digital rights of children and young people

The increasing reliance in schools on educational technology (edtech) poses a threat to children's digital privacy, particularly where children's data is used for or shared with others for commercial purposes. However, assessing the privacy of digital products is challenging given the opaque and evolving nature of the digital economy. Many schools share the responsibility for assessing edtech with education departments and authorities; however, to date, there has been very little empirical or theoretical work on how schools, education departments and authorities evaluate the privacy risks and data practices associated with the digital products used in schools. Drawing on an analysis of the Safer Technologies 4 Schools (ST4S) framework developed by Education Services Australia, education department policies, as well as interviews with education department staff and representatives, we examine how the data practices of digital products are examined in government schools in Australia and how schools are supported to choose tools that demonstrate best practice in terms of protecting students’ digital privacy. Findings suggest that while the goal of the ST4S framework is to streamline and unify digital privacy standards across states and territories, the complexity of the Australian education system, the number and diversity of digital products used, and the different governance approaches across the country make this difficult. Our conclusions reveal a compliance culture towards children's digital privacy, rather than a best practice approach, and a trust (or even ‘overtrust’) in ‘big tech’. However, we note some promising developments in this area and make recommendations for future research.

Platform Dependency in the Big Tech Era: Lessons from Australian Facebook Blackout and Botswana Implications

The surge in social media usage for news consumption has led to a heightened reliance on these platforms for accessing information worldwide. In Botswana, Facebook has become one of the primary channels for news consumption, mirroring trends seen in various nations. However, the 2021 Australian Facebook conflict exposed the risks associated with over-reliance on such platforms for news dissemination. In this paper, we investigate the phenomenon of platform dependency, specifically examining the implications for Botswana, in the wake of the Australian Facebook news blackout. Employing a stratified sampling approach, data was gathered by tracking the volume of news posts shared across 51 selected Facebook pages throughout February 2021. The findings revealed a noteworthy trend, with an average of 5630 news items posted or shared on the platform within four weeks. This marked a growing reliance on Facebook-exclusive pages for news consumption, with minimal engagement observed on alternative websites. We argue that there is a precarious position of pages solely reliant on Facebook for news sharing, especially amidst escalating big data politics and regulatory measures that target Tech Giants. Consequently, these pages face an uncertain future, potentially hampering access to vital news reporting and information-sharing to the adaptive population. Currently, in Botswana, there is a notable dearth of academic exploration into the regulation of Big Tech and its potential repercussions for the nation. Thus, this study serves as a cornerstone in pursuing this significant area of inquiry.

Public-Private Powerplays in Generative AI Era: Balancing Big Tech Regulation Amidst Global AI Race

Public-Private Powerplays in Generative AI Era: Balancing Big Tech Regulation Amidst Global AI Race

Will the EU AI Regulations Give Rise to Another ‘Brussels Effect’? Lessons from the GDPR

The pre-eminence of the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in regulating the business of data collection, processing and transfer cannot be understated. It has come to serve as the model for laws in several non-EU jurisdictions who share in the EU’s concerns about citizens’ data being harnessed by Big Tech in particular. This article explores the GDPR’s outsized impact in the sphere of data regulation, the conflict between the contrasting models of regulation adopted by the EU and the United States and comments on the possibility of the AI regulations becoming what the GDPR is for data. It further delves into the possibility of this approach being followed by countries like India, where government efforts to integrate AI-based innovation and entrepreneurship have led to the possibility of newer regulatory approaches being adopted.

Re-infrastructuring higher education

Higher education is undergoing ‘digital transformation’ through the introduction of new digital platforms in processes and practices of research and teaching. This brief forum article explores how research and teaching in many regions are being ‘platformised’ by a combination of academic publishers, the edtech industry, and Big Tech firms. Together, these processes of platformising research and teaching are integrating universities into complex digital infrastructures for many of their central operations. Universities are being re-infrastructured. They are also being ‘assetised’ as control of platforms and infrastructures allows their proprietors to extract value from the HE sector. These developments call for concerted dialogue on the conditions and prospects of academic labour in the digital university, and close attention to how emerging technological devices and systems are integrated into, challenged or transformed by scientific and pedagogic practice.

Generating AI Alternatives

May 2024 finds us eighteen months on since the release into the wild of unregulated generative AI models and their chatbot front-ends. While Higher Education (HE) has been playing catch-up in terms of policy and regulation (e.g. Russell Group 2023, Conrad 2023, EU 2022), those who work in higher education have been grappling with the consequences for learning, teaching, assessment, and research on the ground. Between the hype from big tech on the one hand, and a sense of despair on the other, alternative, critical and ethical activities have begun to emerge (Bender et al., 2021; Bozkurt, A. et al., 2023; Conrad, 2023; Fischer et al., 2023; Nerantzi et al., 2023; Rahm, 2023). This workshop explores these alternatives both as concept and method.

Impact of Entrepreneurial Orientation and Technology Acquisition on Technology Startups

Since the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, the global economy has been led by big tech companies based on technology startups. In this situation, it is very timely to investigate the antecedent factors for the performance enhancement of technology startups that can play a big role in driving economic growth. We investigate the effect of entrepreneurial orientation and technology acquisition on the financial and non-financial performance of technology startups. In order to achieve these research goals, we collected data from 121 Korean technology startups to examine the effects. Our results support that both entrepreneurial orientation and technology acquisition improve the performance (financial and non-financial) of technology startups. In addition, the entrepreneurial orientation of technology startups has a significant indirect effect on performance (financial and non-financial) through technology acquisition. Overall, our study contributes to improving the understanding of the antecedent factors for the achievement of the performance of technology startups in the field of entrepreneurship research by presenting a new research model of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, technology acquisition and the performance of technology startups. In addition, this study provides the basis for the need for technology acquisition support policies for technology startup support institutions to nurture technology startups.

Asset allocation models for big tech stocks: The importance of lower partial moments and short length windows

The group of companies formed by Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet have become a successful investment alternative in the U.S. stock market. In this context, the aim of this research is to provide investment strategies based on these companies to the challenge of how individual investors should allocate their funds in a portfolio and outperform benchmarks such as the SPY ETF or a naïve portfolio. To this end, we developed a total of 20 asset allocation models and constructed portfolios with different rebalancing periods between April 2014 and June 2022. Our overall results reveal that a combination of a short window length for estimating the parameters of the asset allocation models and a procedure that takes downside risk into account, more precisely the Lower Partial Moment approach, significantly outperforms the alternative of investing in the SPY ETF and also the naïve portfolio.

Social Media and Surveillance Capitalism: Facebook, Political Polarization, Orwellian Dystopia, and American Democracy

Social Media and Surveillance Capitalism: Facebook, Political Polarization, Orwellian Dystopia, and American Democracy

The data economy

This article analyzes the evolution of capitalism under the logic of the data economy, the result of the transition to a paradigm dominated by knowledge, technology and design. The data economy, driven by Artificial Intelligence technologies, opens up possibilities for digital businesses. The impact of digitalization, technology on business models and global socioeconomic dynamics are discussed, with special emphasis on the role of Big Techs. A broad bibliographical review, from a multidisciplinary perspective, allows us to analyze how hyperconnectivity and emerging technologies are restructuring interactions and production processes, transferring the centrality of capital from the physical to the immaterial. The article also addresses the ethical and regulatory implications of this scenario, highlighting the need for effective techno-regulation. In the context of Brazil, a fertile environment for startups and fintechs can be identified, although limited by structural challenges, highlighting the importance of public policies that promote innovation and technological education. It concludes with a reflection on the need for more solid and equitable data governance, aligning technological advancement with the protection of rights.

Digital Commons for the Ecological Transition: Ethics, Praxis and Policies

The article seeks to understand how the digital commons movement addresses ecological issues, how its actors incorporate them into their ethics and praxis, and the challenges they face in scaling up to become a viable ecological alternative to digital capitalism. Building on three case studies, we show that the digital commons currently face three major limitations: reliance on unsustainable Big Tech products, inability or unwillingness to scale up, and negligible political support. Based on two Policy Labs we conducted with actors of the digital commons movement, we conclude by outlining proposals to overcome these limits by adopting E.O. Wright’s anti-capitalist strategies framework.

Labouring and Smiling: Re-Imagining Digital Colonialism in Africa, Silicon Valley Big Techs, and the Politics of Prosumer Capitalism in Nigeria

Does Africa suffer from the paucity of epistemic inquiry on digital capitalism, mostly, spearheaded by social media platforms within the confines of the global digital economy? The growing corpus of literature points to digital colonialism and prosumer capitalism as critical components in understanding the global digital economy. Yet, postcolonial Africa lags in the negotiation of power within the political economy dynamics of digital capitalism. Thus, in an age of big data, platformisation and extraction of human life, is there a reincarnation and excavation of colonialism of old in the form of digital prosumer capitalism in the continent? Using Nigeria as a geo-economic prism, the paper reimagines digital colonialism from a critical perspective. It seeks to discharge the underlying appropriation of economic power through digital colonialism; and show how prosumer capitalism grounds its practices in Nigeria, thereby, recentring the debate on digital economic inequalities given the global digital capitalism paradigm.

Ethopolitical media: Organizing Assistive Technology, disability and care in the platform society

In this paper we prompt a re-reading of Assistive Technology (AT) as a media system that organizes disability in the framework of digital health-care and the platform society. Drawing on disability media studies and organization studies, we investigate how the arrival of big tech and digital platforms in the field of AT reconfigures ways to account for, classify and potentially discriminate against disability. We argue that this new configuration can be explained as a shift from a biopolitical model – oriented toward disability normalization – to an ethopolitical model, oriented toward optimization and health enhancement. In the conclusions, we put forward the concept of ethopolitical media and discuss the implications of this for wider debates in media and cultural studies which deal with the relationship between media, health, and self-care.

Migrating the state into corporate clouds

ABSTRACT This article examines the cloudification of the state by focusing on ‘Project Nimbus’ – a $1.2 billion tender offered by the Israeli government to move ‘the entire Israeli state’ into corporate clouds. As one of the biggest informational infrastructure projects Israel has known, Nimbus revolves around the construction or repurposing of six massive, resource-hungry corporate data centers and the ‘migration’ of the state into them. Accordingly, Nimbus potentially redraws the relationship between the state and big tech, as well as between the state and its citizens. Based on thematic analysis of various project-related sources, we highlight four main aspects of the ‘cloudification of the state.’ First, focusing on cloud ideology, we expose the neo-liberal logics behind the construction of the Nimbus data centers. Second, focusing on cloud epistemology, we show that the effort and organizational changes that come with the cloudification of the state translate into an acute dependence on the tech giants. Third, focusing on the DCaaSization of the state, we argue that with its reliance on DCaaS (‘data center as a service’), the state's ‘behind the scenes’ is fading into the tech giants’ backstage. Lastly, we argue that this cloudification translates into disseminating advanced AI-powered data processing tools alongside pronounced data-ist Silicon Valley ideologies. We conclude by arguing that the construction of the Nimbus data centers and the subsequent cloudification of the state enhance power and information asymmetries between the state and big tech and discuss the data-coloniality of this new cloudified power structure.

Foundation models are platform models: Prompting and the political economy of AI

A recent innovation in the field of machine learning has been the creation of very large pre-trained models, also referred to as ‘foundation models’, that draw on much larger and broader sets of data than typical deep learning systems and can be applied to a wide variety of tasks. Underpinning text-based systems such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and image generators such as Midjourney, these models have received extraordinary amounts of public attention, in part due to their reliance on prompting as the main technique to direct and apply them. This paper thus uses prompting as an entry point into the critical study of foundation models and their implications. The paper proceeds as follows: In the first section, we introduce foundation models in more detail, outline some of the main critiques, and present our general approach. We then discuss prompting as an algorithmic technique, show how it makes foundation models programmable, and explain how it enables different audiences to use these models as (computational) platforms. In the third section, we link the material properties of the technologies under scrutiny to questions of political economy, discussing, in turn, deep user interactions, reordered cost structures, and centralization and lock-in. We conclude by arguing that foundation models and prompting further strengthen Big Tech's dominance over the field of computing and, through their broad applicability, many other economic sectors, challenging our capacities for critical appraisal and regulatory response.