Open AccessPrivacy Within the Private Order: A Critical Evaluation of the Market-Based System Governing Data Collection in the United States
Author(s) -
Claire McCloskey
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of law and jurisprudence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2052-1871
DOI - 10.14324/111.444.2052-1871.1207
Subject(s) - notice , data collection , privacy policy , ambiguity , intermediary , autonomy , order (exchange) , argument (complex analysis) , information privacy , big data , law and economics , economics , political science , business , sociology , law , computer science , marketing , social science , data mining , finance , biochemistry , chemistry , programming language
This paper critically evaluates the market-based system governing data collection in the United States. The discussion is centred around Big Tech, a group of information intermediaries responsible for the ongoing extraction and exploitation of consumer data. The exploitative system is enabled by the ubiquitous privacy policy, which ostensibly offers data subjects ‘notice’ of data collection and the ‘choice’ to consent to said collection. This paper critiques the ‘notice and choice’ model, concluding the combined ambiguity and opacity of the privacy policy fail to offer subjects meaningful control over their data. To substantiate this argument, the paper evaluates the suitability of the market-based system in a broader sense, arguing that data collection practices precludes the knowledge parity necessary for an operative and fair market-based system. The paper concludes by ascertaining the suitability of state-based regulation, identifying data’s intrinsic relationship with ideals that are core to the Western tradition: equality, democracy, and autonomy.