THE CODE of the PLATFORM Abbey Stemler* Joshua E
THE CODE OF THE PLATFORM Abbey Stemler* Joshua E. Perry** Todd Haugh*** * Assistant Professor of Business Law and Ethics, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business; Consultant, World Bank Group; Affiliate, Ostrom Workshop. ** Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics and Glaubinger Chair for Undergraduate Leadership, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business. *** Assistant Professor of Business Law and Ethics, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business; Board Member, the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions; Supreme Court Fellow, Supreme Court of the United States. The authors would like to thank Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center and the World Bank Group’s Macroeconomics, Trade & Investment Climate division, as well as participants of the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s conference on the Harmonization of Business Law, the Northeast Privacy Scholars Workshop at Fordham University School of Law, and the Law and Ethics of Big Data colloquium at Babson College, for helpful comments on early drafts. THE CODE OF THE PLATFORM Abstract Digital platform-based businesses such as Uber, eBay, and Google have become ubiquitous in our daily lives. They have done so by expertly harnessing technology to bring supply and demand side users together for commercial and social exchange. Users are happy to let these platform companies play “matchmaker” because transaction costs are lowered—it is easier to find or give a ride, buy or sell a product, or obtain almost any kind of information than ever before—and platforms are happy to be at the center of the exchange, taking advantage of network effects to grow wildly successful.
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