The nature of data makes it easy for data to flow from one place to another. Yet, the scope of secondary reuse is driven by contractual obligations and jurisdiction.
Data-driven companies often operate at a global scale, but regulation varies from one locale to another, creating onerous compliance costs for young companies and even more prohibitive costs for inadvertent noncompliance.
A 2012 study by Harvard researcher Josh Lerner, for example, found that “the EU e-Privacy Directive has led to an incremental decrease in investment in EU-based online advertising companies of approximately $249 million over the approximately eight-and-a-half years from passage through the end of 2010.”