Elettra Bietti’s research while affiliated with Harvard University and other places

Concerns about big tech's monopoly power have featured prominently in recent media and policy discourse, and regulators across the US, the EU, and beyond have ramped up efforts to promote healthier competition in the market. One of the favored approaches is to require certain kinds of interoperation between platforms, to mitigate the current concentration of power in the biggest companies. Unsurprisingly, interoperability initiatives have generally been met with vocal resistance by big tech companies. Perhaps more surprisingly, a significant part of that pushback has been in the name of security -- that is, arguing against interoperation on the basis that it will undermine security. We conduct a detailed examination of "security vs. interoperability" arguments in the context of recent antitrust proceedings in the US and the EU. First, we propose a taxonomy of such arguments. Second, we provide several detailed case studies, which illustrate our taxonomy's utility in disentangling where security and interoperability are and are not in tension, where securing interoperable systems presents novel engineering challenges, and where "security arguments" against interoperability are really more about anti-competitive behavior than security. Third, we undertake a comparative analysis that highlights key considerations around the interplay of economic incentives, market power, and security across diverse contexts where security and interoperability may appear to be in tension. We believe systematically distinguishing cases and patterns within our taxonomy and analytical framework can be a valuable analytical tool for experts and non-experts alike in today's fast-paced regulatory landscape.

Weaponized in support of deregulation and self-regulation, “ethics” is increasingly identified with technology companies' self-regulatory efforts and with shallow appearances of ethical behavior. So-called “ethics washing” by tech companies is on the rise, prompting criticism and scrutiny from scholars and the tech community. The author defines “ethics bashing” as the parallel tendency to trivialize ethics and moral philosophy. Underlying these two attitudes are a few misunderstandings: (1) philosophy is understood in opposition and as alternative to law, political representation, and social organizing; (2) philosophy and “ethics” are perceived as formalistic, vulnerable to instrumentalization, and ontologically flawed; and (3) moral reasoning is portrayed as mere “ivory tower” intellectualization of complex problems that need to be dealt with through other methodologies. This article argues that the rhetoric of ethics and morality should not be reductively instrumentalized, either by the industry in the form of “ethics washing”, or by scholars and policy-makers in the form of “ethics bashing”. Grappling with the role of philosophy and ethics requires moving beyond simplification and seeing ethics as a mode of inquiry that facilitates the evaluation of competing tech policy strategies. We must resist reducing moral philosophy's role and instead must celebrate its special worth as a mode of knowledge-seeking and inquiry. Far from mandating self-regulation, moral philosophy facilitates the scrutiny of various modes of regulation, situating them in legal, political, and economic contexts. Moral philosophy indeed can explainin the relationship between technology and other worthy goals and can situate technology within the human, the social, and the political.

Amid growing concern about the use and abuse of personal data over the last decade, there is an emerging suggestion that regulators may need to turn their attention towards the concentrations of power deriving from large-scale data accumulation. No longer the preserve of data protection or privacy law, personal data is receiving attention within competition and antitrust law. Recent mergers and acquisitions between large digital technology platforms have raised important questions about how these different areas intersect and how they can complement one another in order to protect consumer welfare while ensuring competitive markets. This paper draws attention to one particularly complicated kind of digital data-intensive industry: that of third party tracking, in which a firm does not (only or primarily) collect and process personal data of its own customers or users, but rather data from the users of other ‘first party’ services. Mergers and acquisitions between firms active in the third party tracking industry raise unique challenges for privacy and fundamental rights which are often missed in regulatory decisions and academic discussions of data and market concentration. In this paper, we combine empirical and normative insights to shed light on the role of competition regulators in addressing the specific challenges of mergers and acquisitions in the third party tracking industry. After critically assessing some of the US and EU case law in this area, we argue that a bolder approach is needed; one that engages in a pluralist analysis of economic and noneconomic concerns about concentrations of power and control over data.

Amid growing concern about the use and abuse of personal data over the last decade, there is an emerging suggestion that regulators may need to turn their attention towards the concentrations of power deriving from large-scale data accumulation. No longer the preserve of data protection or privacy law, personal data is receiving attention within competition and antitrust law.Recent mergers and acquisitions between large digital technology platforms have raised important questions about how these different areas intersect and how they can complement one another in order to protect consumer welfare while ensuring competitive markets. This paper draws attention to one particularly complicated kind of digital data-intensive industry: that of third party tracking, in which a firm does not (only or primarily) collect and process personal data of its own customers or users, but rather collects and processes data from the users of other ‘first party’ services.Mergers and acquisitions between firms active in the third party tracking industry raise unique challenges for privacy and fundamental rights which are often missed in regulatory decisions and academic discussions of data and market concentration. In this paper, we combine empirical and normative insights to shed light on the role of competition regulators in addressing the specific challenges of mergers and acquisitions in the third party tracking industry. After critically assessing some of the US and EU case law in this area, we argue that a bolder approach is needed; one that engages in a pluralist analysis of economic and noneconomic concerns about concentrations of power and control over data.