Notice and Consent
New Research: Rebecca Lipman, “Online Privacy and the Invisible Market for Our Data.” The paper argues that notice and consent doesn’t work, and suggests how it could be made to work.
Abstract: Consumers constantly enter into blind bargains online. We trade our personal information for free websites and apps, without knowing exactly what will be done with our data. There is nominally a notice and choice regime in place via lengthy privacy policies. However, virtually no one reads them. In this ill-informed environment, companies can gather and exploit as much data as technologically possible, with very few legal boundaries. The consequences for consumers are often far-removed from their actions, or entirely invisible to them. Americans deserve a rigorous notice and choice regime. Such a regime would allow consumers to make informed decisions and regain some measure of control over their personal information. This article explores the problems with the current marketplace for our digital data, and explains how we can make a robust notice and choice regime work for consumers.
Subscribe to comments on this entry
Behavioral change not consent • February 26, 2016 2:04 PM
The conclusion:
No they shouldn’t, but the Internet is one big honeypot full of corporate/government creeps. It ain’t changing, ever.
We shouldn’t, but we live in dangerous times with a global trend of police states in formation or near completion.
Naive in the extreme.
Governments and their corporate partners don’t respect laws – they are only made for the little people. We live in a neo-feudalist, post-democratic society that will use technology to further enslave and control the masses who are becoming superfluous in the oligarchic economic model.
Privacy must be taken back by force via changes in behavior. If we use open-source software, the strongest encryption available, best-practice anonymising tools (Tor, Ricochet etc), abandon email/social networks, and most importantly, cease entering any and all important personal information into the cyber-sphere, then we stand a chance of reclaiming our inalienable rights.
Nothing short of a complete shift in human thinking on the vile Panopticon that is the internet will suffice.
Pure fantasy.
The muppets (public) were given a treasure trove of Snowden material showing everything is being collected (“Collect it all!”), huge data centers are going online, and that governments have implemented a 1984 blueprint for more than a decade – and the numbers of people making significant changes to their on-line behavior is still negligible. Moreover, dominant companies like Microsoft have increased their abuse of personal data and monitoring (e.g. Winblows 10) in response to disclosures of their unsavory practices.
Wrong. Unless you have a zero trust model, you have no control.
The public has already been informed of the risks, but has allowed convenience and cognitive dissonance to rule the day.
Don’t forget that democracy is only vibrant if the people are actively engaged with policy issues and participate in choices about government decisions e.g. “Do I wish for blanket surveillance?”. Since this is not happening, you are a) not living in a democracy and b) are considered irrelevant in the greater scheme of things.
Thus, as a potential threat to the status quo, you must be kept under control by state institutions – in this instance the spooks and their authoritarian partners – and sold the perpetual lie that dragnet surveillance is in the interests of ‘national security’. In fact, it is only done to secure the interests of the .01% and the MIC.