Quando la città (s)vende se stessa - La Città invisibile | perUnaltracittà | Firenze

Le fiere dell’immobiliare sono il luogo d’incontro privilegiato tra amministrazioni locali e capitali finanziari. È qui che disponibilità di terreni e immobili (pubblici) si incrocia con la propensione a fare investimenti (privati) sulle città. “Il pilastro della nostra manifestazione sono gli eletti”, afferma una dirigente della fiera Mipim di Cannes (cit. in Antoine Guironnet, Au … Quando la città (s)vende se stessa Leggi altro »

Driving into a Paywall: The Subscriptionization of Consumer Vehicles | Engaging Science, Technology, and Society

Understanding Data Valuation: Valuing Google’s Data Assets

Digital personal data are increasingly understood as a key asset in our digital economies. But how should we value such data? Numerous policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders are trying to work out how to manage the collection, use, and valuation of data in order to balance the advantages and disadvantages of its collection and use. The negative implications of data practices may include privacy loss, data breaches, or declining market competition, while social and economic benefits include improved service delivery, more efficient welfare systems, or better products. Increasingly, data are conceptualized as an asset. To understand the value of data as an asset means understanding how data are configured as an asset; data value does not reflect ownership and property rights per se, but rather diverse modes of access and use restrictions (usually delineated by opaque contractual agreements). Data are increasingly controlled by a few, large digital technology firms, especially so-called ‘Big Tech’ firms. In this paper, we use Google as a case study of how Big Tech firms configure and value digital data as an asset. We analyse how Google understands, frames, values, and monetizes the data they collect from users. We qualitatively analyse an extensive dataset of financial documentary materials produced by and about Google to identify the different modes of access and use restrictions that Google deploys to turn digital data into a valuable asset. We conclude that, despite being highly ambiguous, Google’s approach to data value focuses on monetizing users.

Turning universities into data-driven organisations: seven dimensions of change - Higher Education

Universities are striving to become data-driven organisations, benefitting from data collection, analysis, and various data products, such as business intelligence, learning analytics, personalised recommendations, behavioural nudging, and automation. However, datafication of universities is not an easy process. We empirically explore the struggles and challenges of UK universities in making digital and personal data useful and valuable. We structure our analysis along seven dimensions: the aspirational dimension explores university datafication aims and the challenges of achieving them; the technological dimension explores struggles with digital infrastructure supporting datafication and data quality; the legal dimension includes data privacy, security, vendor management, and new legal complexities that datafication brings; the commercial dimension tackles proprietary data products developed using university data and relations between universities and EdTech companies; the organisational dimension discusses data governance and institutional management relevant to datafication; the ideological dimension explores ideas about data value and the paradoxes that emerge between these ideas and university practices; and the existential dimension considers how datafication changes the core functioning of universities as social institutions.

#17: Methods to Research Land Ownership and Advance Land Justice: The Appalachian Land Study | Institutional Landscapes