Digital Platforms, Data Sovereignty, and Corporate Power: Rethinking Governance in the Platform Economy

Abstract

Digital platforms have redrawn the boundaries of economic power, public trust, and data control in ways that most regulatory frameworks were not designed to handle. This paper examines how platform giants accumulate and exercise corporate power, why data sovereignty has become a contested terrain, and where trust deficits emerge in organizational settings that depend on these platforms. Drawing on existing literature in platform studies, political economy, and digital governance, the paper maps the structural conditions that make platform overreach possible. It then presents documented cases in which platform-enabled practices eroded trust within workplaces and among users. The paper closes with practical advisories for workplace managers who must operate within, and alongside, platforms whose interests do not always align with those of the people they serve.