Accumulation of capital based on commodification of user data leads to privatization of many aspects of social and political life, previously outside of the process of commodification. Yet, regardless of widespread public outrage, major companies end up being largely unscathed in their economic, and especially financial, performance for three different reasons. First, concentrated and centralized capital creates high entry barriers (investment costs) for newcomers who could potentially challenge their power by providing alternative outputs. GAFAM invests substantial capital in research and development as well as in mergers and acquisitions putting innovation within the industry under their control. Moreover, accumulated data on web search history, social networking, and online purchases puts all newcomers at a significant disadvantage in providing alternative outputs. This is especially the case for the advertising financed digital platforms such as Google and Facebook: software and algorithms extract consumption preferences from the accumulated background data (obtained from the usage of pre-commodities), enabling production of higher quality targeted adverts (intermediate commodities).

Second, legal forms of financial regulation and financial profits enable scaling up and growth of tech business models and provide support for their international expansion, creating enormous personal wealth to shareholders and top executives, and sharpening economic inequality. We will provide evidence of how Google forged a path of trust building among shareholders and investors by acquiring new companies, and by entering legal struggles throughout its corporate development. Finally, the US regulation favours the growth of single large companies under current interpretations of antitrust legislation, and in merger and acquisition approvals. Companies use their economic strength to influence political decisions through lobbying and other practices that

capture the political and regulatory processes, further strengthening their ongoing business operations.

Labour, financial profits, and technological forms

Developing algorithms for recognizing patterns in gathered data allow GAFAM to secure intellectual property rights and to lock-in future profits coming from updated technical solutions. Google provides advertising on their properties such as Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, Gmail, Google Maps, as well as on third party websites within the so-called Google Network Members programme. Facebook relies even more on direct ads within their platform properties (Table 5.1).