Paper long abstract:

Markets, problems and solutions are entangled in ever more complex ways. This paper focuses on the nascent market for online personal data control products (PDCP) designed by an array of start-ups and big software companies. These firms invoke 'the Big Data market' as an umbrella term within which, it would seem, a PDCP market is evolving. This evolution, market participants argue, is taking place through their own processes of creative invention, financing, development and implementation of technologies and provision of services. These activities are each presented as putting online users in control of their data. So far our study shows that the entrepreneurs' strategy to succeed at securing revenue streams involves revising a privacy-versus-growth juxtaposition by redefining what privacy is and what being in control means, leading to market players identifying what the 'real' problem is and the 'real' solution their product provides. The research draws upon data obtained by conducting 31 semi-structured interviews with key figures in the field (entrepreneurs, researchers at global IT-vendors, regulators, academics, and activists based in the US and Europe) and monitoring policy debates to engage with a market based initiative under development, opening up questions regarding the genesis and development of markets as solutions to problems.