{"pk":54244,"title":"Managed Sovereigns: How Inconsistent Accounts of the Human Rationalize Platform Advertising","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Platform business models rest on an uneven foundation. Online behavioral advertising drives revenue for companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, with privacy self-management governing the flows of personal data that help platforms dominate advertising markets. We argue that this area of platform capitalism is reinforced through a process whereby seemingly incompatible conceptions of human subjects are codified and enacted in law and industrial art. A rational liberal “consumer” agrees to the terms of data extraction and exploitation set by platforms. Inside the platform, however, algorithmic systems act upon a “user,” operationalized as fragmentary patterns, propensities, probabilities, and potential profits. Transitioning from consumers into users, individuals pass through a suite of legal and socio-technical regimes that each orient market formations around particular accounts of human rationality. This article shows how these accounts are highly productive for platform businesses, configuring subjects within a legitimizing framework of consumer sovereignty and market efficiency.","language":"en","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"platform capitalism, behavioral advertising, data protection, consumer protection, consumer sovereignty, rationality, privacy"}],"section":"Articles","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4jf8z6zx","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Jake","middle_name":"","last_name":"Goldenfein","name_suffix":"","institution":"","department":""},{"first_name":"Lee","middle_name":"","last_name":"McGuigan","name_suffix":"","institution":"","department":""}],"date_submitted":"2023-05-20T15:08:05-07:00","date_accepted":"2023-05-20T15:08:05-07:00","date_published":"2023-05-20T00:00:00-07:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/lawandpoliticaleconomy/article/54244/galley/40995/download/"}]}