Nick O'Donovan n.j.o'donovan@keele.ac.uk
Personal Data and Collective Value: Data-Driven Personalisation as Network Effect
O’Donovan, Nick
Authors
Abstract
Over recent years, economists, lawyers and regulators have become increasingly interested in the role played by ‘network effects’ in the digital economy: namely, the phenomenon whereby a platform becomes increasingly valuable to its users, the more users it succeeds in recruiting. Whether user-generated content on Youtube and Facebook, proprietorial messaging services such as Whatsapp, or two-sided markets such as Uber and Airbnb, it is now widely recognised that many of today’s most successful technology businesses enjoy a dominance based upon achieving a critical mass of users, which makes it near-impossible for less well-used platforms to compete. What is less widely recognised is that data-driven personalisation operates in a comparable (albeit not identical) manner: as the volume of users increases, personalisation becomes ever more sophisticated, generating a ‘second-order’ network effect that can also have significant implications for the viability of competition. This paper unpacks the distinction between first-order and second-order network effects, showing how both can create significant barriers to competition. It analyses what second-order network effects imply for how governments can and should regulate data-driven personalisation, and how states might help their citizens to regain control over the value that they create.
Citation
O’Donovan, N. (2021). Personal Data and Collective Value: Data-Driven Personalisation as Network Effect. In Data-Driven Personalisation in Markets, Politics and Law (74-92). Cambridge University Press (CUP). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891325.006
Online Publication Date | Jul 9, 2021 |
---|---|
Publication Date | Jul 29, 2021 |
Deposit Date | Feb 29, 2024 |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
Pages | 74-92 |
Book Title | Data-Driven Personalisation in Markets, Politics and Law |
Chapter Number | 4 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891325.006 |
You might also like
Pursuing the Knowledge Economy
(2022)
Book
From Knowledge Economy to Automation Anxiety: A Growth Regime in Crisis?
(2019)
Journal Article
Political visions (and where to find them)
(2022)
Journal Article
Causes and Consequences: Responsibility in the Political Thought of Max Weber
(2011)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Keele Repository
Administrator e-mail: research.openaccess@keele.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search