A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Hub companies shaping the future: the ethicality and corporate social responsibility of platform economy giants
Authors: Härkönen H, Naskali J, Kimppa K
Editors: Kari Smolander, Paul Grünbacher, Sami Hyrynsalmi, Slinger Jansen
Conference name: ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering
Publisher: ACM
Publishing place: New York, NY
Publication year: 2019
Journal: ACM Sigsoft International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering
Book title : Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGSOFT International Workshop on Software-Intensive Business: Start-ups, Platforms, and Ecosystems
First page : 48
Last page: 53
ISBN: 978-1-4503-6854-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3340481.3342738
Web address : http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3340481.3342738
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/41670670
Hub companies (e.g. Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and Google) rule the internet. They are de facto monopolies in their area of operations. They shape the future in which we live. And, it seems there is nothing we can do about that, as traditional economies of extreme scale – in which eventually the size of a corporation starts to be a hindrance, rather than an advantage – do not apply to them. On the contrary, they keep growing and growing and thus gaining stronger and stronger strangle hold over their respective areas of commerce and influence. This leads to unethical results, where the corporations spin out of any control, national or international. In this paper we give reasons to this phenomenon and lament the future of the internet – unless something drastic is done to change this.
Downloadable publication This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |