Peter Ormerod

Scholars in recent years have decried the prevailing atomistic, control-centric approach to data governance. In its stead, they have offered a competing vision that focuses on structural solutions to the information economy’s collective pathologies. Within this movement, some have sought to reclaim and renew competition law, while others have focused on more direct forms of regulation.

Few have explored the clash between these distinct approaches to disciplining firms’ data-driven activities. This Essay seeks to preempt a costly tug-of-war between them by mining and exposing the contours of their relationship. It builds on recent work to identify instances where policymakers should rely on competition to indirectly govern firms’ data-monetization strategies and instances where competition is instead likely to produce a deleterious race to the bottom. These latter examples are ripe targets for an invigorated form of overt data governance, which this Essay outlines and defends.