Question: What does data governance mean?
Question 2: How is the ownership and transaction order of data products formed?
Any market or society needs order to function effectively. Order can be endogenous to the market and society, that is, spontaneous order, or exogenous to supervision and the rule of law, that is, institutional order.
Spontaneous order, born in the market operation itself, is the basis of regulating market behavior and an important part of market order, which can solve many problems. Such as voluntary trading, bargaining, abiding by agreements, fulfilling contracts, etc. It is spontaneously formed and operates effectively. Different market segments also have their own trading rules, such as first come, first served (queuing), the highest bidder wins (bidding), must (emergency), lucky (drawing lots) and so on. But no matter which rule is dominant, as long as traders are selective and predictable, the orderly operation of the market can be guaranteed.
Although spontaneous order is the foundation, it is often not enough to ensure the effective operation of the market, eliminate the negative externalities generated by the market and ensure social fairness and justice, so supervision and legal system are also indispensable. For example, to prevent monopoly and encroachment on the rights and interests of others. These are all to build the bottom line of the market peers, and we must not let a few people who are out of order take advantage of it, so that bad money will drive out good money.
The reason why spontaneous order plays a wide role and forms the basis of market order is because market transactions or exchanges are based on the complementarity and mutual benefit formed by individual ability differences and resource conditions, and all parties can benefit from the transactions, so they have enough will and motivation. For the government, there is no broad basis of mutual benefit between the government and market players as market exchange, which needs the public position of the administrative department and its employees to promote. However, the meticulous calculation and the surplus of all parties in individual transactions are imperceptible to non-parties, so it is easy for the government to form a deviation between understanding and interests when judging profits and losses and stipulating trading rules between others. Therefore, in the case of normal competition and safeguarding property rights and contracts, the government mainly makes up for the problem of "market failure" by letting spontaneous order play its role.
Are these understandings and laws applicable in the data age? To answer this question, we need to study what kind of spontaneous order existed in the data market in the past twenty years. How does it work? Is it effective? Can regulators or any "outsiders" who are not both sides of the transaction be expected to calculate the value or transaction price of each transaction in massive data? Or specify formulas or rules to calculate data values? These are all important judgments. If the data market or data society can't form an effective spontaneous order, can't rely on competition, can't rely on the game between subjects to maintain the transaction order and stabilize expectations, and can't promote innovation, does that mean that an economy and society with administrative supervision and legal order is needed? If the discussion is extended and the data is regarded as public goods, the situation will be more complicated, and its competitive exclusivity cannot be pushed by other types of public goods, so it is far from solving the problem to say that "data is operated by companies with national background". How to form the ownership and transaction order of data is a big problem, which indicates whether the digital age and data market are compatible with the "market economy".
Three questions: Can platform autonomy be used for data governance?
In the digital age, a large platform builds a local market on which many market participants engage in economic activities and social exchanges. The transactions generated by a large number of producers and consumers on the platform are massive and high-frequency, and the number of disputes and various problems to be dealt with is huge, far exceeding the regulatory capacity of the traditional government, and the rapid changes of events are far beyond the rhythm of legal adjustment. Due to the partial failure of these traditional institutional orders, the platform can only assume the function of maintaining the order of the industrial circle, become the "tangible hand" in its cooperation circle, and build its own order.
Platform autonomy has played an important role in many aspects. Although it is not perfect, it is feasible and available, such as protecting consumers' rights and interests, protecting intellectual property rights, handling transaction disputes and so on. Then, the platform is an important data collector, holder, user and trader. Can we expect the platform to form a basically effective autonomous order in the data field under the necessary regulatory framework? If possible, what conditions and guidance are needed? Can it provide the necessary time and space for the formation of its internal autonomous order under the necessary supervision? Can different platforms be allowed to have different data governance features? Can the game between platforms play the role of survival of the fittest?
Question 4: How can the government effectively supervise the data market?
In the traditional concept of supervision, government policies, regulations and laws need to be comprehensively considered, and they should be implemented stably for a long time after promulgation and cannot be changed. However, in the digital age, data governance, regulatory objects and regulatory environment are changing rapidly, especially the scale of the platform and the large amount of data transactions are prone to monopolistic problems and other improper behaviors, which have spread rapidly, and the problem of too big to fail is particularly prominent. Therefore, the regulatory system, policies and regulations should not always seek long-term stability, comprehensive improvement and universal application, but should be introduced in time, revised and improved in time, iteratively upgraded in time, or even one thing, one discussion, one platform and one policy. In short, in response to the rapidly changing digital world, supervision itself needs constant innovation and needs to update concepts and methods. At the same time, the society should also have reasonable expectations and evaluation criteria for the regulatory authorities.
(The writer is member the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC), deputy director of the Social Construction Committee, dean and professor of Tsinghua University Institute of Business Administration. )