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Visitors to a Google product event: distortion of competition through data domination
Photo: ELIJAH NOUVELAGE / AFP
Germany's founders criticize the data power of the large digital corporations.
These are the figures that the Federal Association of German Start-ups collected as part of the annual “Start-up Monitor” and that are available exclusively to SPIEGEL.
According to this, 67.2 percent of the entrepreneurs surveyed complain about the distortions of competition that result from data monopolies in a few international corporations.
Every second start-up (53.2 percent) agrees with the statement that established companies should enable access to their data.
At the EU level, the problem has been recognized for a long time, so there is an open data strategy in many places that is intended to balance the power of Silicon Valley with public access.
Apparently, this only works inadequately.
Although around nine out of ten start-ups state that they regularly carry out data-based analyzes, only 37.5 percent have sufficient access to relevant data.
The efforts at national and European level are not enough for most entrepreneurs: Almost three out of four start-ups surveyed (73.9 percent) would like more material to be made available.
Crisis-proof start-up scene
For the start-up scene, which has digitized much faster than other industries in recent years, data availability is an important competitive advantage that should point the way out of the corona crisis.
Nevertheless, in retrospect, Germany's start-ups seem to have come through the pandemic better than originally feared.
Despite the pandemic-related restrictions, the picture is now more optimistic than in the previous year: In 2020, 74.2 percent of the companies surveyed for the »Start-up Monitor« stated that their business activities were adversely affected by the crisis.
This year it is only a good half at 51.2 percent.
23.8 percent of the start-ups even feel no effects from the pandemic, at least a quarter are now recording positive business activity.
That is almost twice as many as in the previous year.
A total of 2013 start-ups were surveyed online for the ninth edition of the annual survey.
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