Consumer Law

Paper Arguing Against Privacy

By Jeff Sovern

Thomas M. Lenard of the Technology Policy Institute and Paul H. Rubin of Emory University - Department of Economics have written In Defense of Data: Information and the Costs of Privacy.  Here's the abstract:

The commercial use of information on the Internet has produced substantial benefits for consumers. But, as the use of information online has increased, so have concerns about privacy. In this paper we argue that acting on those concerns would be counterproductive. Far from a 'free lunch,' more privacy implies less information available for producing benefits for consumers, including targeted advertising and the valuable web services it supports, e.g. search engines, email, and social networks. Concerns about privacy may also be misguided. Most data collected about individuals is anonymous, and reducing legitimate uses of online information is not likely to reduce identity theft. Firms appear to be responsive to consumers? privacy preferences, which also points to a properly functioning market. Our analysis suggests that proposals to restrict the amount of information available would not yield net benefits for consumers.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on January 22, 2010 (boomark / email).