Dear TEKPOL Partners,

As you're all aware we are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of TEKPOL's foundation this year. Therefore we believe it is a valuable opportunity to reconnect with our partners all over the globe working in the field of science and technology policy making and wish to proceed hosting the series of online seminars that we started in the spring semester of 2023 academic year.

Our third guest this fall will be Altuğ Yalçıntaş from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences. His presentation title will be; "Bilim ve Teknoloji Politikası Olarak Dijital Korumacılık ( in Turkish)".

The seminar will be held on 29 December (Friday) 2023, at 12:30 Turkey time (GMT +3) , in HYBRID format; at IIBF Building A Room 106 at METU Campus and online through Microsoft Teams. The meeting link will be shared with the registered participants before the session.

The moderation of the seminar will be conducted by Prof. Erkan Erdil from METU TEKPOL.

Registration is mandatory and the form can be reached through this link:

https://forms.gle/WixUru9yMpn2BjXe7

It is possible to register until Thursday evening before the seminar (28 December 2023)

Kind Regards,

TEKPOL, Science and Technology Policy Research Center

About Altuğ Yalçıntaş:

Altuğ Yalçıntaş was born in 1976 in Izmir. He's currently working in corporate economics field. He has written and editted books that have been published by Routledge, Palgrave, İletişim Publishing, AU Department of Political Sciences Publishing. His research papers have been published by Journal of Economic Issues, Journal of Institutional Economics, Review of Radical Political Economics, Rethinking Marxism, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Review of Social Economy and Journal of Philosophical Economics journals. He's currently working at Ankara University, in Department of Politics and Economics.

About the Seminar:

Digital media corporations such as Alphabet and Apple invade people's privacy and personal data and make high profits through their operating systems such as Android and iOS. Is it possible to prevent corporations from engaging in unfair and unlawful practices concerning personal data processing by making regulations regarding the laws of data protection and competition? Dr. Yalçıntaş and his colleague argue in their research paper that the laws of data protection, such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and anti-trust laws in the EU, structure digital economies in such a way that while the corporations are held liable for the abuse of dominance in the related market, such laws do not affect protecting individuals' privacy and personal data. A better solution would be to create an environment where individuals have a choice, and where they can negotiate the terms and conditions. This is possible by amending existing laws and designating new provisions that prevent invasive and compelling manners of the companies that users are exposed to in practice.

Dr. Yalçıntaş will be presenting a summary of their research paper and their main findings.