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The Future of Privacy: A Consumer‐Oriented Approach to Managing Personal Data Online
Author(s) -
MacDermott Siobhan,
Smith J. R.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
thunderbird international business review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.553
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1520-6874
pISSN - 1096-4762
DOI - 10.1002/tie.21520
Subject(s) - privacy policy , consumer privacy , internet privacy , european union , business , interoperability , personally identifiable information , ftc fair information practice , information privacy , legislature , transformative learning , data protection act 1998 , european commission , information privacy law , computer security , political science , computer science , international trade , law , psychology , pedagogy , operating system
Beginning with Facebook's recent controversial “tweaks” to its privacy policy and its promise to support users against employers and others who attempt to compel users to divulge passwords, we critically review European Union (EU) and US digital privacy initiatives. Whereas the EU proposal relies on legislative regulation, the United States proposes industry self‐regulation partially enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). We conclude that not only do the sharply differing EU and US approaches present significant problems of global digital interoperability, but neither proposal promises to result in practical and feasible consumer protection, at least not in the near term. Moreover, the EU proposal poses serious threats to the profitability of digital commerce. As an alternative, we propose a “third approach,” empowering the individual digital consumer/user through a personal online strategy we call “wide‐open privacy,” which provides security without sacrificing the transformative economic, cultural, and personal benefits of the Internet. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.