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The Fertile Dark Matter of Privacy takes on the Dark Patterns of Surveillance
Author(s) -
Mulligan Deirdre K.,
Regan Priscilla M.,
King Jennifer
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1002/jcpy.1190
Subject(s) - dignity , autonomy , value (mathematics) , politics , internet privacy , information privacy , law and economics , business , public relations , political science , sociology , law , computer science , machine learning
We argue that privacy's political strength rests in its “economic dark matter” (p. 27)—its role in protecting individual autonomy, freedom, dignity, fairness, the collective value of privacy and the integrity of social life. Where privacy construed as diffuse, atomistic interests in informational control often fails to motivate political action, privacy as constitutive of society and in service of “important [social] functions” succeeds. While Acquisti et al correctly describe the state of our current political economy as having left no space for privacy as a lived, intuitive, human practice, we believe those same conditions are fostering a resurgence of interest in privacy as a means to address the wealth of harms these conditions produce. We close with a call for regulatory approaches that develop institutions, tools, and actors that can iteratively shape the corporate, social, and political landscape to protect the collective, public, and social value of privacy in the public interest.