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Policies and Disclosures for Gatekeeper Platforms
Overview
Our policy work is cross-cutting and a core component of all our digital economy research streams. In addition, we have a specific work stream on policy-orientated digital economy research, focusing on the role of enhanced public disclosures by gatekeeper platforms in order to improve public governance and oversight. We recommend additional public disclosures covering gatekeepers operating metrics (monthly active users), cross-product monetization practises, and disaggregated financial and non-financial reporting. Together this can help ensure that globally dominant products, services, and platforms can be held to account.
Research
- Mariana Mazzucato, Ilan Strauss, Tim O’Reilly, and Josh Ryan-Collins, 2023. Regulating Big Tech: The role of enhanced disclosures, Oxford Review of Economic Policy. Volume 39, Issue 1, Spring 2023, Pages 47–69, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grac040
- Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Entsminger, and Rainer Kattel, 2021. Reshaping Platform-Driven Digital Markets. In Regulating Big Tech: Policy Responses to Digital Dominance, edited by Moore and Tambini, Oxford University Press.
Events
Private Policy Makers Roundtable | 7 February 2022
Our work on digital disclosures was engaged with by high-level policy makers from the EU, UK, and the USA through a closed-door private digital roundtable hosted by UCL IIPP.
Andrea Coscelli, outgoing Head of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), provided opening remarks. This was followed by engagements from participants who included Kate Collyer (Chief Economist at the Financial Conduct Authority – FCA), Heather Boushey (Council of Economic Advisors – CEA), Thomas Kramler (Director General for Competition in the European Commission, Head of antitrust unit on e-commerce and the data economy), Tim Wu (White House Special Advisor), and Mike Kubzanksy (CEO, Omidyar Network).
Who Owns What and Why (WOWAW) Panel Discussions | 2020 and 2021
WOWAW was a series of high-profile webinars hosted by UCL IIPP for the public and leading experts. This thought-provoking series explored ideas of ownership, value extraction and value distribution. The following digital economy panel was hosted:
- WOWAW – Digital Economy, 30 June 2021, Digital feudalism: The future of data capitalism. Mariana Mazzucato (Chair), Tim O'Reilly, and Shoshana Zuboff.
In the press
Our recent work on the need to ensure public digital platform companies provide enhanced disclosures was covered by Rana Foroohar in a full op-ed in the Financial Times. The research, entitled, ‘Crouching tiger, hidden dragons: how 10-K disclosure rules help Big Tech conceal market power and expand platform dominance’, was disseminated through Project Syndicate (republished by Business A.M.) and The Information; and covered through UCL’s news service and the UCL IIPP news services, the UCL IIPP Medium blog, and UCL’s blog.
The report was quickly picked up on by academics in the technology and disclosures space: for example the piece was cited in Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law exploring how to ‘govern Big Tech’. It also helped inform a study for the Canadian Ministry of Innovation on Competition Issues in Data-Driven Markets where it was cited.
- Rana Forooar, 2021. Big Tech is Playing a Digital Shell Game, Financial Times, Dec 12 20221.
- Tim O’Reilly, 2021, It's Time to Open Big Tech's Financial Black Box, The Information, December 16, 2021.
- Mariana Mazzucato, Rainer Kattel, and Josh Entsminger, 2021. Let’s imagine a different kind of platform economy, Sifted, 23 February 2021.
- Mariana Mazzucato, Rainer Kattel, Tim O'Reilly, and Josh Entsminger, 2021. Reimagining the Platform Economy, Project Syndicate, 5 February 2021.
Our Supporter
Contact
Ilan Strauss, Senior Research Associate at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP).
Email: i.strauss@ucl.ac.uk