## Why Data Should Be Shared

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**Canonical URL:** [Why Data Should Be Shared](https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/12/point-of-view-why-data-should-be-shared-viktor-mayer-schonberger)

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: VIKTOR MAYER-SCHOENBERGER
- Published: November 18, 2025

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### Main argument
- Economic innovation in the AI age could stall without regulations that mandate access to data.
- AI amplifies the “feedback effect”: more data → better products → more customers → more data, creating self-reinforcing market concentration.
- Data access mandates (especially for nonpersonal data), if cleverly designed, can reduce transaction costs and enable broader use of data, rewarding ideation rather than data hoarding.

### Evidence and dynamics of concentration
- Google trained its spellchecker some 20 years ago using typos from billions of users; no competitor could match that access to data.
- Google accounts for 9 in every 10 internet searches.
- Six Big Tech companies—Alphabet (Google), Netflix, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft—account for almost half the world’s internet traffic.
- Four companies—Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon—dominate AI computing capacity.
- Surveys show that at least 80 percent of what’s collected worldwide is never used.
- Economic theory and empirical work: economies of scale and scope favor larger firms; dominant firms may lose interest in innovation and prioritize protecting market share (citing work such as Ufuk Akcigit and commentary by Cory Doctorow).

### Limits of alternative policy approaches
- Antitrust and competition regulation that break up platforms address symptoms but not the underlying dynamic that rewards those with the most data.
- Policies granting individuals more control over personal data (e.g., GDPR-style approaches) routinely fail to counter concentration because of collective-action problems—many care but few exercise control.
- Legal ownership or exclusion rights over data and complex licensing regimes risk reducing overall data accessibility and disproportionately burdening individuals and small start-ups.

### Rationale for data access mandates
- Mandates can eliminate the need for negotiated licenses, lowering transaction costs and enabling smaller firms to access data.
- Access mandates encourage data holders to extract value by using the data themselves, promoting data-savviness among conventional firms.
- Multiple players applying ideas to the same data increases ideation and innovation rather than rewarding mere possession.
- Historical and existing precedents:
  - GPS (US military) and EU Galileo: public locational data availability produced safety, efficiency, sustainability gains and enabled a multibillion-dollar industry.
  - Legal requirements to publish financial results and emissions data are longstanding examples of mandated data disclosure.
  - EU rules now require large digital platforms to share some data with smaller competitors.
  - US antitrust settlements have required companies to let competitors access their data; Google was recently required to do so as part of an antitrust trial.
  - 1950s antitrust settlement required AT&T to let US firms use its transistor patents for free, enabling start-ups to design integrated circuits and helping bootstrap Silicon Valley.
  - The patent system itself grants temporary exclusivity only if inventors share details, illustrating value from mandated disclosure.

### Policy implications and recommendations
- Prioritize regulations that mandate access to data (with emphasis on nonpersonal data) as a promising intervention to reduce concentration and sustain innovation.
- Design access mandates to:
  - Reduce transaction costs by avoiding complex licensing negotiations.
  - Enable smaller firms and start-ups to compete and innovate using shared data resources.
  - Promote use of data over mere accumulation, encouraging conventional firms to develop data capabilities.
- Recognize trade-offs: ownership- and license-based regimes can restrict access and entrench larger firms; antitrust alone may be insufficient without addressing data-access dynamics.

*Viktor Mayer‑Schonberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University’s Internet Institute; F&D Magazine, December 2025.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2025/12/point-of-view-why-data-should-be-shared-viktor-mayer-schonberger_