The Digital Era 3

2A Textbook Case: Regulating Algorithms

A large part of the Internet services that accompany our daily lives are based on algorithmic procedures. The underlying software encompass multiple services: search engines, service aggregation, music or video selection, e-commerce, bibliographic search, press or publishing services, brokerage of securities or currency, commodity transactions, etc. This illustrates our intimate and daily relationship with the algorithms that underlie most of these services. Our daily life is thus conditioned by these procedures that are implemented by sites and by the large Internet platforms. These suites of reasoning and automated calculations help to guide our navigation within the continuous flow of information and data that accompanies almost every aspect of our daily lives. They partly condition our work; they can direct our choices and can, consequently, interfere with our free will. It is therefore natural to wonder about the constraints, behaviors and risks that these rules, which are programmed and automated, can lead to, as well as examine the reasons, the way and the means to face them.

This study explores the key features that come to mind for those who are considering establishing governance of the procedures implemented by the Internet; regardless of the method and the means envisaged for supervising the use of algorithms, this approach must naturally remain compatible with the rule of law. After having explored the main hypotheses proposed ...