When Private Goods Are Public Goods: Infrastructural Power and Two-Sided Markets

• In Event: Infrastructures and Infrastructural Power in Global Politics

Abstract

Business decisions on issues ranging from content moderation to data protection rights define when and how important social values like free speech and privacy rights are protected. This article examines when and how firms regulate public goods in a digital economy. In contrast to functionalist explanation of private authority, we build an analytical framework based on business power and information assets. Drawing on the concept of infrastructural power and socio-technical studies, we first emphasize how companies centrally located in digital infrastructures can embed their policy preferences in technical artefacts and regulate other users’ behavior. We then argue that firms benefitting from significant information assets and network effects use the public interest to legitimize closing off their infrastructure and extract economic rents. We probe our argument looking at the do not track (DNT) policy implemented by Apple. Our findings contribute to explain the growing role played by digital companies in global regulatory debates and call attention to the role of infrastructural power.

Authors

• Guillaume Beaumier, Georgetown University

• Abraham Newman, Georgetown University