Breaking Away sounds a warning call alerting readers that their privacy and autonomy concerns are indeed warranted, and the remedies deserve far greater attention than they have received from our leading policymakers and experts to date. Through the various prisms of economic theory, market data, policy, and law, the book offers a clear and accessible insight into how a few powerful firms - Google, Apple, Facebook (Meta), and Amazon - have used the same anticompetitive playbook and manipulated the current legal regime for their gain at our collective expense. While much has been written about these four companies' power, far less has been said about addressing their risks. In looking at the proposals to date, however, policymakers and scholars have not fully addressed three fundamental issues: First, will more competition necessarily promote our privacy and well-being? Second, who owns the personal data, and is that even the right question? Third, what are the policy implications if personal data is non-rivalrous? Breaking Away not only articulates the limitations of the current enforcement and regulatory approach but offers concrete proposals to promote competition, without having to sacrifice our privacy. This book explores how these platforms accumulated their power, why the risks they pose are far greater than previously believed, and why the tools need to be far more robust than what is being proposed. Policymakers, scholars, and business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs seeking to compete and innovate in the digital platform economy will find the book an invaluable source of information.

About the Author
Maurice E. Stucke is the Douglas A. Blaze Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the law firm, Konkurrenz. With 25 years experience handling a range of policy issues in both private practice and as a prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, he advises governments, law firms, consumer groups, and multi-national firms on competition and privacy issues. He has testified before, and provided expert reports for, multiple governments and inter-governmental agencies, including the European Commission, United Nations, OECD, and World Bank. He has been quoted, and his research has been featured, in numerous media outlets.

Reviews
Stucke (law, Univ. of Tennessee) discusses data privacy in an approachable manner for lay readers. He covers how a few large tech companies, such as Google's parent company Alphabet, hoard data. He then describes the attempts of international, federal, and state laws to rein in data collection, mostly to little effect. These discussions serve as an introduction to his analysis of data privacy, especially data that include personal identifiable information...This book sounds a clarion call for ordinary people and experts alike to take data privacy seriously. * Choice *
The arguments in the book are clear, well evidenced and indicative of the author's distinguished career as a scholar, lawyer and legal advisor...Stucke uses concise language and useful examples to make specialised concepts easily comprehensible to readers who are unfamiliar with either or both fields. This makes Breaking Away a valuable read not only for scholars, lawyers, consumer groups and policymakers, but also anyone interested in how their data are being used and what can be done about it. * Shania Ann Kirk, European Journal of Risk Regulation *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197617601
Author Maurice E. Stucke
Format Hardback
Page Count 294
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 494g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 159mm * 20mm