There are a number of privacy issues related to how online companies collect, store, use and share personally identifiable information; and how consumers are informed about what is done with their information online. Companies that operate a business or advertise online often want to know more about the behavior and demographics of their customers in order to more efficiently target information. Consumers may have a variety of concerns about the information they reveal online, including: identity theft, child safety online, the protection of one’s reputation, or a wish to avoid aggressive marketing pitches. At some level, online privacy is a balance between the economic value of information – including its ability to provide a return to content creators so that the Internet continues to thrive – and the need to ensure that privacy is protected, so that fear of sharing information does not unduly limit the Internet as a place of creative and commercial exchange.
These issues arise in discussions of privacy:
- How consumers view and value different aspects of privacy –and whether there is a difference between what they say they value, and what they actually do in practice online.
- How firms can set fair privacy policies and ensure consumers adequately understand their policies.
- How engineers can design technology to better protect privacy.
- Comparing privacy or “data protection” law in Europe and in the U.S. Unlike Europe, the U.S. has no comprehensive privacy law, so privacy online falls under a range of different, and overlapping, set of rules covering different types of information.
- The costs and benefits of privacy regulation.
- The intersection between privacy and other goals such as security, competition, or free speech.
TAP Academics researching privacy policy issues involving consumers include:
Anita Allen of the Pennsylvania Law School writes about privacy, journalism, and health care.
“In the end, we turn into citizens who live in a world where we have no control over our own data.” From an interview with The New York Times, 4/8/2010
Lorrie Faith Cranor of Carnegie Mellon University uses her expertise in computer science to inform her work on phishing, privacy and computer security.
Chris Hoofnagle of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology writes about background checks, airport searches, and model privacy law.
Paul M. Schwartz of the UC Berkeley School of Law is an expert on international privacy norms and surveillance.
Joseph Turow of the University of Pennsylvania Law School writes about consumer’s views of privacy and advertising.
“We must move from the current marketing regime that uses information with abandon – where people’s data are being sliced and diced to create reputations for them that they don’t know about and might not agree with – to a regime that acts toward information with respect.” From testimony to the United States Senate, July 27, 2010
These sources are a good place to start in understanding privacy issues. Daniel Solove and Chris Hoofnagle support broad regulation of privacy in “A Model Regime of Privacy Protection.” Robert W. Hahn and Anne Layne-Farrar take a more skeptical view in “The Benefits and Costs of Online Privacy Legislation.” Peter Swire looks at privacy and competition policy in “Privacy and Antitrust.” “Privacy, Property Rights & Efficiency: The Economics of Privacy as Secrecy,” by Michael Katz and Benjamin Hermalin, finds that whether privacy benefits consumers depends on many factors.
Recent Developments
In November of 2009, a
hearing in the House examined offline data collection and trade. In February of 2010, the House held a hearing on “The Collection and Use of Location Information for Commercial Purposes.” The Federal Trade Commission held a
series of privacy roundtables in 2009 and 2010.
Upcoming Events
To see a calendar of events of relevance to TAP academic work, please see the
TAP Events page.
