This chapter discusses the gradual consolidation of the dual-sided framework in the contemporary digital era. Despite the decades-long transatlantic battle between ‘free flow’ and privacy protection, serious disagreement over how to conceptualize data, and the inter-regime tension between human rights and world trade, this chapter argues that the consolidation of the dual-sided framework is precisely a result of such internal tensions and contradictions. The more this dichotomy seems hard to resolve, the more the two framings of free trade and human rights get reinforced, and the more they monopolize the policy terrain for the governance of information and data. This chapter also shows that, despite the entrenched dichotomy, free trade and human rights regimes have been mutually influencing in the ways they respectively approach transborder data flows and the responsibility of big tech, hence further reinforcing the transnationalization of capital and unequal distribution of power in information capitalism.

By 2022, social media platforms had become more prominent access points to news than traditional news media platforms. Although news media also draw benefits from online platforms, they find themselves in an increasingly asymmetric relationship that appears to harm journalists and new media’s ability to generate revenues online. Remedying the uneven playing field between big tech and news media has been a recurring ambition of European media policy. In the context of literature on corporate political activity, this chapter investigates how three big tech companies, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, have positioned themselves in relation to EU policymaking that aims to strengthen the rights of journalists, news media and press publishers online. The chapter argues that while these big tech companies primarily seek to preserve their own business models and reputations, the media policy domain also reveals a split in their lobby narratives. Due to lower exposure to reforms in digital media policy, Microsoft has been less opposed to, and in fact has campaigned for, stronger protection for news media against digital platforms.

Chapter 5 focuses on the regulation of social media platforms and platform architecture, with changes in EU perceptions regarding the reliability of these platforms and the values of their owners. It examines the shift from economically motivated self-regulatory regimes in these sectors based in logics of efficiency to a digital sovereignty-motivated move to a logic of security in regulation. It identifies the explicit linkage between economic and security concerns, particularly as it relates to disinformation and political advertising, with the promotion of co-regulatory regimes with significant levels of oversight provided by the Commission. It explores the approach to regulatory export adopted in these initiatives, with an emphasis on control of platforms regardless of where they are based, so long as they offer services in the EU.

This chapter explores the prospects of Pillar One and Pillar Two. Fundamentally, Pillar One seems destined to fail, while Pillar Two is being implemented by a critical mass of countries. Pillar One is unlikely to succeed for three reasons. First, it requires a multilateral tax convention (MTC) among over 100 countries to be implemented. Second, because Pillar One is still aimed primarily at taxing the US digital giants (Big Tech), it is hard to envisage it being implemented without the United States. Third, Pillar One is premised on all the countries that have adopted DSTs repealing them. But DSTs are politically popular and, in some cases (e.g., the United Kingdom), brought in significant revenue. This chapter discusses options countries may have to tax Big Tech without Pillar One and then addresses the US response. For Pillar Two, it examines how Pillar Two will affect countries that have not adopted it yet, such as China and the United States, and Pillar Two’s impact on domestic tax incentives like tax holidays, accelerated depreciation, and tax credits.

The Introduction sets the scene by describing the relevance of the idea of a symbiotic relationship between competition and democracy in the history of competition law and the contemporary policy debate. It identifies the gap in the literature, explains the research question and the purpose of the book, and presents the argument of the book in a nutshell. It starts with the observation that the idea of a link between competition and democracy is a recurrent theme in US and EU competition law. However, existing scholarship has so far struggled to clearly explain what the relationship between competition and democracy actually consists of. This knowledge gap is filled by this book which provides a clear, conceptually sound, and surprising answer to this research question. It argues that the idea of competition–democracy nexus is grounded in a republican understanding of liberty as non-domination which can be traced back to the political thought of the Ancient Roman republic and fundamentally differs from our contemporary negative concept of liberty as non-interference. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate how this republican concept of liberty explains the idea of a competition–democracy nexus in US and EU competition law.

Datafication-enabled advertising and other datafication practices, in the absence of proper constraints, will deepen the perils of datafication. A set of cross-border competition disciplines proposed in Chapter 5 may well be an effective instrument to address problems associated with platform monopolies and data capitalism. In this way, there would be less need for ex-post competition law enforcement in developing countries and LDCs, where relatively limited resources can be allocated to combat digital cartels and data monopolization. In this context, algorithmic transparency can serve as a starting point for global platform governance. The case study in Chapter 5 investigates the key dimensions of platform transparency requirements in a comparative context and demonstrates that the fragmentation of platform regulation is growing. The proliferation of platform regulations and algorithmic disciplines may place SMEs in an even more difficult situation vis-à-vis big tech companies, which have the resources necessary to manage different legal requirements in different countries. Despite the inherent complexity of the political economy surrounding digital capitalism, Chapter 5 concludes that there are reasons to be optimistic about better governance through international trade agreements.

Media platformization has caused problems that a state cannot easily regulate. The media content regulations considered in Chapter 4 are prime examples demonstrating the need to alter the power distribution in the Internet ecosystem. In terms of speech platforms, the “rules-based” platform governance model led by the EU, such as the DSA, now represents a strong power in balancing the US’ CDA-based social media self-regulation. The years to come will be critical to the global governance of digital platforms. Key indicators include whether more and more countries will adopt DSA-like regulations along the EU regulatory path. In terms of streaming services, the content quotas for video streaming platforms may constitute performance requirements for investment in services. This measure may also violate the obligations that apply to the nondiscriminatory treatment of digital products. Looking ahead, cultural diversity concerns regarding avatars in the VR space will be even more complex and will propel the “trade v. culture” clash to another level. No matter how carefully crafted, media content regulation must face enforceable reality. Trade rules that ban local presence would enable platform companies to supply services without establishing a local presence, which could significantly constrain a state’s ability to enforce platform regulations.

So as not to face potential disruption, universities will need to actively engage in the sector’s evolution as opposed to passively observing its revolution. To stay competitive, they will need to adapt pedagogy and content to ongoing changes lest they risk their irrelevance. They are advised to create occasions for relationship and community building, fostering students’ affection for and attachment to their alma mater, and to avoid the university’s being abstract in students’ minds. Instead of the current standard of one-time, early-life degrees (intermittence), lifelong learning and persistence over alumni’s entire professional careers appear to be academia’s model for the future. Universities must assure higher applicability of taught material to job requirements, as employers are increasingly launching own corporate universities offering nano- and micro-degrees. Finally, affiliation with edtech start-ups and big tech companies might be necessary to ensure the funding needed to navigate academia’s new online reality and thus bypass isolation.

Chapter 1 sets the scene, highlighting the rise of US dual-class stock success stories in recent years, before contrasting it with the rules of the FCA, which prohibit dual-class stock from the London Stock Exchange’s most prestigious listing segment, the premium tier.Regulators fear that dual-class stock incentivises controllers to extract personal benefits to the detriment of shareholder value.However, there has been a significant decline of UK IPOs in recent years, with a severe dearth of large tech company listings, with high-growth companies and unicorns seeking private finance options instead.The United Kingdom is subject to disproportionate levels of takeover activities, and thriving British businesses are regularly being purchased by foreign acquirors.Dual-class stock could, though, encourage and promote the listing of high-growth companies, enabling founders to divest of equity and generate further equity finance for growth, while insulating the management team, and its pursuit of the founder’s long-term, idiosyncratic vision, from removal by public shareholders and takeovers if short-term profits are low.Although the standard tier listing of The Hut Group was a success, it entailed certain compromises which emphasise the importance of the premium tier, and dual-class stock could be the shot-in-the-arm to resuscitate what has become a moribund IPO market.

In contrast to the United States and, to a lesser extent, China, the United Kingdom’s listed company tech market is threadbare, notwithstanding the pipeline of growing, successful private companies.As part of a package to support entrepreneurs and innovation, relaxing the premium tier prohibition of dual-class stock could attract flotations on the London Stock Exchange by enabling founders to divest of equity and generate finance for growth while retaining the control essential to them in pursuing their long-term visions.Although regulators, and institutional investors, fear that dual-class stock incentivises public shareholder expropriation by controllers, evidence from other jurisdictions, especially the United States, does not corroborate those fears, and many exchanges, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai and India have recently determined that the benefits of dual-class stock outweigh the costs.However, evidence also suggests that existing dual-class firms are excessively discounted by the market, and the United Kingdom could, therefore, accrue a commercial advantage by reducing the cost of capital for dual-class firms through the judicious use of constraints.By tailoring those constraints carefully as proposed in this book, ‘founder without limits’ will not be feared, but will be seen as a critical piece of the jigsaw in boosting the British economy in uncertain times.

I arrived at 8:30 to begin observations and interviews, and was met by Bill, the company’s chief privacy officer, a man in sneakers and jeans roughly in his mid-sixties.1