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Regulating Digital Platforms (BLAW20002)
Undergraduate level 2Points: 12.5Online
Subjects taught in 2022 will be in one of three delivery modes: Dual-Delivery, Online or On Campus.
From 2023 most subjects will be taught on campus only with flexible options limited to a select number of postgraduate programs and individual subjects.
To learn more, visit COVID-19 course and subject delivery.
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable(opens in new window)
Contact information
Please refer to the specific study period for contact information.
Overview
| Availability | Summer Term - Online |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
This subject offers an overview of how law interacts with online digital platforms. After exploring different types of platforms and their business practices, through a series of case studies, it introduces students to a selection of fundamental regulatory domains in the information economy.
In recent years online digital platforms have become a site of critical study. Early Utopian visions of the internet included open speech environments, anonymous interactions, and non-hierarchical networks. Today’s cyberspace, however, is deeply hierarchical, embedded in a surveillance and data-processing based economy, with work, social life, and commerce all channeled through increasingly powerful digital platforms. Online digital platforms now dominate activities like search, shopping, and social media, as well as coordinate offline activities like ride-sourcing and labour-hire. Some have suggested the massive power of digital platforms emerged under conditions of 'lawlessness'. Close analysis makes clear however, that law – its existence, interpretation, and enforcement – are all critical to how the digital economy is structured and how platforms monetize their position.
This subject explores different types of online digital platforms, the ways they monetize data, and how they exert power in the digital economy. Examples include controlling the visibility of websites or products with ranking algorithms, renting access to repositories of intellectual property, facilitating marketplaces, and selling advertising. Understanding the platform economy means coming to grips with the workings of 'ad-tech', industrial scale data mining and refining, the monetization of user attention, and the ways platforms coordinate actors in multi-sided markets.
Through a selection of case studies highlighting ongoing regulatory controversies in different legal fields, this subject then looks at how law both contributes to and limits the power and practices of platforms. For instance: how data protection and privacy laws shape consumer profiling and behavioural advertising; how developments in intellectual property both enable platforms to amass huge content repositories that are rented to consumers, while at the same time allowing other platforms to avoid paying for content; how both trade secrets law and transparency requirements regulate the visibility of ranking systems and other forms of algorithmic decision-making; how competition law manages monopolies and anti-competitive behaviour; how labour law enables platforms to limit their obligations to workers; and how laws requiring or not requiring removal of content enable platforms to optimize algorithms for maximum engagement.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject students should:
- Have an understanding of the different ways that online digital platforms operate in the information economy
- Appreciate how different legal ideas interact with of digital platforms, and how the interpretation and enforcement of law influences platforms' business practices
- Understand how regulation has developed over the years to assist platforms to monetize their dominant positions
Generic skills
On completion of this subject students should have:
- Capacity for self-directed learning, specifically the ability to plan work and use time effectively;
- Cognitive and analytical skills;
- Ability to speak about complex ideas in a clear and cogent manner;
- Awareness of diversity and plurality;
- Ability to write essays which develop structured argumentation;
- Capacity to judge the worth of their own arguments.
Last updated: 23 April 2022
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Recommended background knowledge
It is strongly recommended that students have completed at least 100 points of undergraduate study before enrolling in this subject. Students are responsible for checking any course progression rules with their home faculty.
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 23 April 2022
Assessment
| Description | Timing | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
Two short writing exercises of 500 words each
| End of the teaching period | 25% |
Reflective essay
| 4 Weeks after the end of teaching | 75% |
Additional details
Assessment due dates will be available on the LMS.
Last updated: 23 April 2022
Dates & times
- Summer Term - Online
Principal coordinator Jake Goldenfein Mode of delivery Online Contact hours • 45 mins asynchronous videos daily • 45 mins online lecture daily • 90 mins tutorial daily Total time commitment 136 hours Pre teaching start date 3 January 2022 Pre teaching requirements Students are expected to access and review the subject materials that will be available from the LMS subject page. Teaching period 31 January 2022 to 11 February 2022 Last self-enrol date 7 January 2022 Census date 4 February 2022 Last date to withdraw without fail 11 February 2022 Assessment period ends 11 March 2022 Summer Term contact information
Time commitment details
136 hours
Last updated: 23 April 2022
Further information
- Texts
Prescribed texts
Subject materials will be available via the LMS.
- Related Handbook entries
This subject contributes to the following:
Type Name Breadth Track Law - Media and Intellectual Property Law - Breadth options
This subject is available as breadth in the following courses:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Bachelor of Biomedicine
- Bachelor of Commerce
- Bachelor of Design
- Bachelor of Environments
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Animation)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Film and Television)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Music Theatre)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Production)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Screenwriting)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre)
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art)
- Bachelor of Science
- Available through the Community Access Program
About the Community Access Program (CAP)
This subject is available through the Community Access Program (also called Single Subject Studies) which allows you to enrol in single subjects offered by the University of Melbourne, without the commitment required to complete a whole degree.
Entry requirements including prerequisites may apply. Please refer to the CAP applications page for further information.
Additional information for this subject
If required, please email the Subject Coordinator for approval.
- Available to Study Abroad and/or Study Exchange Students
This subject is available to students studying at the University from eligible overseas institutions on exchange and study abroad. Students are required to satisfy any listed requirements, such as pre- and co-requisites, for enrolment in the subject.
Last updated: 23 April 2022