Legal research has yet to fully grapple with the challenge Big Tech poses for law and effective regulation. Relevant law appears fragmented and underenforced, for good and bad reasons. Law is also increasingly snapping to grid on new forms of governance that rely on the power of Big Tech, entrenching its role in how institutions shape or serve our societies.

Regulation under pressure

Leading US tech companies have struck a deregulatory alliance with the US administration in pursuit of global, unbridled expansion and societal disruption. The EU has made a deregulatory turn as well. These trends could increase Big Tech’s dominance at a time when we should be reining in its excesses.

Big Tech is challenging our laws and harming democratic institutions. Ten years after the so-called tech lash, a new body of law has emerged in Europe to rein in the biggest excesses of these behemoths. Yet these companies often find ways to gain the upper hand when engaging with European law and regulations, at times even leveraging them to their advantage.

The role of legal scholarship

In his inaugural lecture, Joris van Hoboken will build on the intellectual tradition of information law to explore some of the complexities, perversions and opportunities that qualify the relationship between law and Big Tech. He will draw attention to the urgent challenges these technology companies pose for our societies and to the role of legal research in realising democratic self-governance.

The societal pressure to address our dependency on Big Tech and the harms it causes is significant and increasing every day, including through litigation. Van Hoboken will argue that legal scholarship also has a role to play in how the unfinished business of law and Big Tech will ultimately play out.

Joris van Hoboken, professor of Information Law, with special emphasis on Law and Digital Infrastructure: On the Unfinished Business of Law and Big Tech. 

This inaugural lecture can be followed here live.