Are tech giants responsible for their actions along Global Value Chains (GVC) down to the ‘Global South’? The responsibilities of private actors, companies evolving in the algorithmic society do not mean there is no responsibility for national states. Stressing private responsibilities below the surface of the constitution directs the attention to the bulk of national, European and international rules that are and that have been developed in the last decades and that in one way or the other are dealing with responsibility or perhaps even better responsibilities of private and public actors. From the discussions on ‘double standards’ to the recent Recommendation of the European Parliament, it is not only the behavior of companies but of their commercial partners along the GVC are at the heart of the debate. From the 1970s sector-specific or product-specific rules were adopted. Today, it is a holistic approach reflecting the globalization of supply chains that are needed. Recent initiatives on the due diligence of large companies seem to go in this direction. Many of the puzzling aspects are discussed in this chapter.

The environmental concern and its social side effects will be at the core of regulatory authorities’ agenda on top of short-term efficiency objectives in the foreseeable future. The steady growth of ‘big data’, of digitalization and of the new data-processing technologies will change the way firms and governments use and share information in the design, compliance and enforcement of regulation. The institutional environment of regulation will need to evolve to correct institutional mistakes of the past and to internalize the impact of the data revolution on the distribution of regulatory mandates across agencies and across sectors within countries and across countries. Non-traditional financial actors will press regulators to internalize more systematically financial markets’ concerns in the design of regulation in exchange for their willingness to help close the financing gap of many regulated industries. Keeping the right balance between the return-on-investment objectives of non-traditional financial actors, investment targets, users’ needs and taxpayers’ benefit is a challenge for the regulators of the future. Tools emerging from applied research in behavioural economics will offer new alternative regulatory tools to improve the effectiveness and targeting of regulation.