Precarious Ownership of the Internet of Things in the Age of Data

Tusikov, Natasha

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-14540-8_6

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…As consumers purchase only the product hardware, while product software remains under the control of manufacturers, ownership of IoT goods can thus be understood as "hybrid" (Keymolen & Van der Hof, 2019, p. 8). Consumers' purchase of IoT goods is a "precarious" form of ownership subject to the discretion of IoT makers who can arbitrarily change conditions after purchase (Tusikov, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…IoT companies' private ordering relies upon pervasive surveillance because, for manufacturers of IoT goods, surveillance is a business model (Schneier, 2013) and a regulatory mechanism (see Tusikov, 2019). Monitoring performs two interrelated functions: data collection and processing to enable the operation of IoT products, and customer/device monitoring to detect violations of the licensing agreements.…”

Section: Post-purchase Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Regulation through “bricking”: private ordering in the “Internet of Things”

Tusikov¹

2019

Internet Policy Review

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Internet-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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Post-purchase Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulation through “bricking”: private ordering in the “Internet of Things”

Tusikov¹

2019

Internet Policy Review

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“…Organizations with a monopoly over the collection and use of data would also hold a monopoly over the regulatory activities that go along with that data collection (Scassa, 2017). Tusikov (2019a), meanwhile, highlights how the proliferation of data‐enabled networked devices (the “Internet of Things”) is changing property relations themselves, with de facto control over physical objects resting not with the owner of the physical device but with the company that controls the software and data flows that make the product work.…”

Section: Theoretical Framing: Data As Power Data Is Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Infrastructure, smart cities and the knowledge economy: Lessons for policymakers from the Toronto Quayside project

Haggart

Spicer

2022

Can Public Adm

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Sidewalk Labs' Quayside project in Toronto demonstrates how information technologies are shaping cities' core governance functions. This article focuses on the rules governing decisions to collect, use and disseminate data in data‐intensive urban‐infrastructure projects. We propose a methodological framework grounded in the multidisciplinary literature on data governance and apply it to the Quayside project, demonstrating how Waterfront Toronto's failure to ask basic questions at the project's outset forced it into retroactive improvisations that allowed Sidewalk Labs to lead and propose data‐governance policies primarily in the company's economic interests. We offer recommendations for how cities and other public entities can avoid such mistakes and better analyze knowledge‐intensive infrastructure projects.

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“…The shift to chipification is also facilitating a concerning shift toward subscription models of car ownership, in which a consumer buys the physical car but has to pay subscription fees for different services on the car, ranging from fuel efficiency boosts to heated seats to autonomous driving systems to adaptive cruise control (BMW, 2020; Torchinsky, 2020). Legal scholars studying communication and information technologies have also sounded the alarm that corporations could use systems like copyright to maintain their control over chipified devices like cars, impeding vehicle owners’ ability to tinker with and learn from their cars (Perzanowski and Schultz, 2016; Samuelson, 2016; Tusikov, 2019).…”

Section: (Chipified) Car Culturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The material consequences of “chipification”: The case of software-embedded cars

Forelle

2022

Big Data & Society

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Today's modern car is an assemblage of mechanical and digital components, of metal panels that comprise its structure and silicon chips that run its functions. Communication and information studies scholars have interrogated the problematic aspects of the programs that run those functions, revealing serious issues surrounding privacy and security, worker surveillance, and racial, gendered, and class-based bias. This article contributes to that work by taking a step back and asking about the issues inherent not in the software running on these chips, but on the microchips themselves. Using the lens of “chipification”—the process by which a device is rendered capable of reading and processing data through the embedding of microchips—this article explores how the integration of microchips also involves processes that are often borne from, replicate, or create troubling power dynamics of their own. It takes light-duty passenger vehicles as a case study into how chipification is radically reshaping such processes as resource allocation, labor flows, and cultural practices around car manufacture, use, repair, and modification. By naming the process of chipification, this article allows researchers to identify and analyze the ways that integrating data processing capabilities into everyday devices is not a frictionless practice, but rather one that implicates a variety of power dynamics within these massive industries.

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Precarious Ownership of the Internet of Things in the Age of Data

Cited by 8 publications

References 23 publications

Regulation through “bricking”: private ordering in the “Internet of Things”

Regulation through “bricking”: private ordering in the “Internet of Things”

Infrastructure, smart cities and the knowledge economy: Lessons for policymakers from the Toronto Quayside project

The material consequences of “chipification”: The case of software-embedded cars

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