Digital Business Models Should Have to Follow the Law, Too. HBR Online. January 2, 2015.
A timeless maxim suggests that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. Nowhere is that more prominent than in the current crop of digital businesses, which tend to skirt laws they find inconvenient. Though these services and their innovative business models win acclaim from consumers and investors, their approach to the law is troubling — both for its implications for civil society and in its contagious influence on other firms in turn pressured to skirt legal requirements.