The Janus faces of Silicon Valley

Abstract

In recent years, the power of large technology corporations has become a focus of public debate in both developed and developing countries. This growing chorus brings together complaints about breaches of privacy and data protection, competition and market consolidation, and electoral and other political interference. The most powerful of these companies have grown into behemoths by establishing themselves both as purveyors of their own products, and as the hosts of “platforms” that circumscribe, and profit from, the activities of other organizations. This platform function gives these companies substantial power over their commercial rivals, who depend upon these platforms to operate. More fundamentally, this article argues, the dual function of these “platform companies” allows them to straddle the very categories that we use to organize our understanding of the political and economic world. They are at once product companies, service companies and infrastructure companies; players in the market and markets of the marketplace; private platforms and public spheres. The straddling of these categories places these companies in the institutional cracks of the regulatory system. Moreover, companies consciously exploit this regulatory straddling to thwart challenges to their power. This article argues that such deliberate shape-shifting has allowed these companies to control the political and economic stage on which their own power must be contested, and compromised the ability of scholars, the public and ultimately states to see clearly, and therefore constrain, that power.

Keywords:

• Corporate power
• technology platforms
• globalization
• antitrust
• private authority
• digital economy

Acknowledgements

I thank the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) for convening the 2019 workshop at which this paper was first presented, as well as the participants for their early feedback. I also thank colleagues at the Society for the Advancement for Socio-Economics and the Copenhagen Business School for their constructive criticism. I am particularly grateful to Matthew Archer, Vikram Atal, Stephanie Diepeveen, Shazia Rafi, and Farhan Samanani for their invaluable assistance in refining the arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Although the company is now called Alphabet, Inc., the documents cited in this paper were produced prior to this name change.

2 The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term ‘Janus-faced’ as 1. ‘having two sharply contrasting aspects or characteristics’ and 2. ‘insincere or deceitful.’

Additional information

Funding

I am indebted to the Otto Mønsteds Fond for support for this research.

Notes on contributors

Maha Rafi Atal

Maha Rafi Atal is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Copenhagen Business School where she studies the political economy of corporate power. Her research interests include the politics of corporate social responsibility; corporate influence in the media; technology platforms and regulation; and corporate accountability under international law. She is also an award-winning business and economics journalist. Find her at http://maha-rafi-atal.com.