Pessimism about regulating data markets reflects neoliberal dominance of market reference points.

Evidence

There is a growing global debate about whether the existing frameworks for regulating data processes need strengthening and about how this might be done. Some see little hope for any practical intervention that could halt the expansion of market forces, but such pessimism can be understood as the symptom of neoliberal culture’s success in enforcing the dominance of market reference points, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom. The increasingly popular business argument that data collection is so pervasive that it should be exempted from legal regulation, and regulation should be focused entirely on use (an argument Helen Nissenbaum calls “Big Data Exceptionalism”), reflects that US market context, though it also echoes much global business rhetoric—for example, from the World Economic Forum. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 548

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names and defines ‘Big Data Exceptionalism’ — the claim that data collection is too pervasive to regulate, so only use should be regulated.
• XREF: Big Data Exceptionalism connects to the attention/surveillance school’s critiques of platform self-regulation, but diverges by locating the problem in market dominance rather than attention capture.