Department of Social Science
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Item Open Access Greener cities: intellectual property and data in sustainable smart cities(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024-02-20) Tusikov, NatashaThe climate crisis places renewed attention on cities, as cities are particularly vulnerable to some effects from climate change but can also play a key role in mitigating the climate emergency. Cities, particularly smart cities, which are characterized by real-time data capture and the integration of digital technologies into physical infrastructure, have a key role to play in ensuring environmental sustainability. Smart cities could implement clean technologies (termed ‘cleantech’) that are intended to mitigate climate change effects. By adopting a critical perspective on intellectual property and drawing from the critical data studies literature, the chapter examines how smart cities might deliver on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 11 of environmentally sustainable cities. The chapter makes a twofold argument: public officials who plan and operate smart cities require a critical understanding not only of intellectual property (IP) rights, but also how digital data produced by smart city technologies should be collected, used, and governed. To make its argument, the chapter considers the roles of IP and data in the case of Google’s ‘climate positive’ smart city project in Toronto, Canada that was cancelled as of May 2020. As this case study demonstrates, those who own the IP of key smart city technologies and those who can monetize data flows from that technology are able to disproportionately capture economic benefits from smart cites. IP functions as an instrument of control in that it provides those who control the IP with the power to determine who is allowed to use the knowledge protected by the IP rights in question, a phenomenon that also explains how companies in the Global North that disproportionately control the IP rights on cleantech use those rights as a barrier to impede developing countries’ low-cost, widespread manufacturing of cleantech.The climate crisis places renewed attention on cities, as cities are particularly vulnerable to some effects from climate change but can also play a key role in mitigating the climate emergency. Cities, particularly smart cities, which are characterized by real-time data capture and the integration of digital technologies into physical infrastructure, have a key role to play in ensuring environmental sustainability. Smart cities could implement clean technologies (termed ‘cleantech’) that are intended to mitigate climate change effects. By adopting a critical perspective on intellectual property and drawing from the critical data studies literature, the chapter examines how smart cities might deliver on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 11 of environmentally sustainable cities. The chapter makes a twofold argument: public officials who plan and operate smart cities require a critical understanding not only of intellectual property (IP) rights, but also how digital data produced by smart city technologies should be collected, used, and governed. To make its argument, the chapter considers the roles of IP and data in the case of Google’s ‘climate positive’ smart city project in Toronto, Canada that was cancelled as of May 2020. As this case study demonstrates, those who own the IP of key smart city technologies and those who can monetize data flows from that technology are able to disproportionately capture economic benefits from smart cites. IP functions as an instrument of control in that it provides those who control the IP with the power to determine who is allowed to use the knowledge protected by the IP rights in question, a phenomenon that also explains how companies in the Global North that disproportionately control the IP rights on cleantech use those rights as a barrier to impede developing countries’ low-cost, widespread manufacturing of cleantech.Item Open Access Censoring sex: Payment platforms’ regulation of sexual expression(Emerald Publishing, 2021-04-23) Tusikov, NatashaPurpose – This chapter examines the role of payment platforms in the United States in sex censorship in which platforms have a pattern of denying financial services to people and businesses involved in publishing legal sexual content. It answers the following questions: what explains payment platforms’ regula- tion of lawful sexual content and what are the consequences? Methodology/Approach – Drawing from the platform governance literature, this chapter closely examines the corporate policies for PayPal and the credit card companies that prohibit certain types of sexual content and services. Findings – This chapter argues that payment platforms’ censorship of sexual expression is shaped by the distinctive nature of and market concentration within the online payment industry. Payment actors’ systematic campaign of sexual censorship disproportionately affects small businesses and individual operators in the sex and adult entertainment industries and amounts to “digital redlining,” a form of financial discrimination. Originality/Value – Payment providers’ role in regulating sex online has received considerably less scholarly attention than research on social media platforms. This gap in scholarship is notable as big payment actors have systematically denied services for about a decade relating to sexually oriented goods and services (see Blue, 2015a).Item Open Access How US-made rules shape internet governance in China(Internet Policy Review, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, 2019-06-30) Tusikov, NatashaThe United States is shaping Chinese internet governance by embedding US-preferred standards for the protection of intellectual property rights within Chinese platforms. As a result, the China-based Alibaba e-commerce giant has instituted US-drafted rules to deal with the sale of counterfeit goods. To explain this development, the article introduces the concept of compliance-plus regulation, which draws from regulatory theory and socio-legal studies to account for the state coercively pressuring one set of private actors (platforms) to regulate “voluntarily” on behalf of another set of private actors (rights holders). Drawing upon an analysis of documents from the US government, US industry, and Alibaba, the article finds that while economic pressure on Alibaba was a central factor, there are also common economic interests between Alibaba and US and European rights holders.Item Open Access Regulation through “bricking”: private ordering in the “Internet of Things”(Internet Policy Review, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, 2019-06-18) Tusikov, NatashaInternet-enabled “smart products” operate through networked software that links the devices to their manufacturers’ servers to enable the collection and distribution of data, and, as a result, these products are vulnerable to software disruption. This article examines “regulation by bricking”, which refers to the deliberate impairment or destruction of software with the intention of negatively affecting product functionality. The article argues that companies are employing bricking within a system of private ordering that is reshaping the governance of physical objects, as companies can arbitrarily and remotely affect the functionality of any software-enabled device and even determine product’s lifespan. Further, the article contends that through companies’ post-purchase regulation of internet-connected goods, “Internet of Things” (IoT) firms have an unfair capacity to impose their preferred policies unilaterally, automatically, and remotely. Control over software thus enables control over hardware. This private ordering occurs within a regulatory framework in which IoT companies use restrictive licensing agreements to govern the use of the products’ software. With a focus on the governance of consumer-oriented IoT goods within the United States, the article draws upon the law and technology literature to explain bricking as a form of techno-regulation, which is the deliberate use of technology as a regulatory instrument (Brownsword, 2005), through an analysis of manufacturers’ licensing agreements for smart products.Item Open Access Defunding Hate: PayPal’s Regulation of Hate Groups(Queen's University Library, 2019-03-31) Tusikov, NatashaThe riot by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, generated a public debate about the role of platforms in policing users involved in violent hate speech. PayPal’s efforts on this issue, in removing services from some designated hate groups while continuing to serve others, highlights the challenges payment platforms face when they act, whether formally or informally, as regulators. This article examines PayPal’s policies and enforcement efforts, both proactive and reactive, in removing its services from hate groups in the United States. It pays particular attention to the surveillance and screening practices that PayPal employs to proactively detect users who violate its policies. The article argues that public calls for PayPal to identify and remove its services from hate groups raise critical questions about ceding broad regulatory authority to platforms and reveal the serious challenges of relying upon commercial enterprises to address complex social problems.Item Open Access The New Knowledge: Information, Data and the Remaking of Global Power(Rowman & Littlefield, 2023-07-25) Haggart, Blayne; Tusikov, NatashaThe New Knowledge is a guide to and analysis of these changes, and of the emerging phenomenon of the knowledge-driven society.Item Open Access Solar Power and the Struggle for Electrification in Africa(2024-05) Ojong, NathanaelOff-grid solar technologies have emerged as one of the remedies to Africa’s severe lack of access to electricity. Evidence from Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, and Kenya suggests that these systems positively affect income generation, education, health, and safety and security. Despite its potential, off-grid solar power’s technical limitations, combined with concerns about durability and environmental impact, underscore the need for more comprehensive solutions. Addressing Africa’s electrification crisis requires a multifaceted approach involving collaboration among various stakeholders to ensure sustainable, reliable, and inclusive energy access.Item Open Access “A Lender Should Not Know Where You Live”: Financial precarity, debt, and everyday life in rural Malawi and Tanzania(2022-12-21) Ojong, Nathanael; Gill-Wiehl, AnneliseThis paper examines the loan sources used by rural solar home system adopters to meet their everyday needs, as well as the motivations for using these sources. The findings show that people in rural areas take into account social and economic factors when making a decision regarding where to seek a loan. People borrowed money from individuals with whom they had strong ties, which could be parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, and neighbours. There is heterogeneity regarding where people situate family members in the weak/strong ties continuum. The results show that people preferred borrowing money from individuals with whom they had relationships based on the principle of reciprocity, suggesting their preference to avoid dependency in favour of equality. The findings also show that spatial and social proximity are intimately interconnected, and that both play an important role in determining where people turn to when in need of a loan. In several cases, the provision of a loan was based on a combination of both dimensions of proximity. Our findings have implications for energy policy that increasingly requires households to bear the financial demands of access to basic energy services.Item Open Access The First Modern Plague: Epidemic Encephalitis in America, 1919-39(College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 2002-12) Kroker, Kenton