SPEAKER: D. Daniel Sokol，南加利福尼亚大学古尔德法学院和马歇尔商学院 教授

TIME/DATE：2024年7月11日星期四10:30-11:30

CLASSROOM：同济大厦A楼403教室

ABSTRACT：

We examine the influence of data broker competition on firms’ selection of data brokers for sharing consumer information and the subsequent impact on consumer privacy within the data supply chain. This data supply chain has privacy issues arising from information asymmetry, where firms collecting and sharing customer information with data brokers often lack transparency regarding the brokers’ data management and security practices. While the traditional literature suggests that competition leads to a “race to the top,”  where data brokers invest more in privacy due to competitive pressures, our paper investigates whether a “race to the bottom” could occur. In this scenario, data brokers might invest less in privacy protection and focus on rare events, where their efforts are not easily observable by firms, ultimately leading to higher customer information leakage. Our analysis first demonstrates that data brokers with higher market share exhibit better privacy practices, as indicated by fewer privacy breaches. We then show that firms are more likely to partner with these prominent data brokers, anticipating superior privacy safeguards. Lastly, our findings indicate that firms experience less consumer privacy information leakage on the dark web when they share customer information with data brokers with higher market share. Our results demonstrate significant policy implications for privacy and competition by clarifying the relationship between market structure, data-sharing practices, and consumer privacy within the data supply chain.

GUEST BIO：

D. Daniel Sokol is the Carolyn Craig Franklin Chair in Law and a Professor of Law and Business at the USC Gould School of Law and Marshall School of Business (marketing department). He holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Economics. He also serves as faculty director of the Center for Transnational Law and Business and the co-director of the USC Marshall Initiative on Digital Competition. Additionally, in a part time capacity, he serves as Senior Advisor at White & Case LLP.

Professor Sokol is among the top 10 most cited antitrust law professors in the past five years. He focuses his teaching and scholarship on complex business issues from early stage start-ups to multinational businesses and the issues that businesses face regarding competition: antitrust, data breaches, corporate governance, digital platforms, compliance, innovation, M&A, digital transformation, and global business regulation.

He is a member of the American Law Institute. He also serves as academic advisor to the United States Chamber of Commerce and as a non-governmental Advisor to the International Competition Network. His work has appeared in a variety of journals: Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Michigan Law Review and Northwestern Law Review, among others.