Abstract
Technology has contributed to rapid yet fundamental changes in the way society functions—but the information revolution is just getting started. Ubiquitous, distributed, and interconnected computational power and massive data storage, coupled with human ingenuity and entrepreneurship, have led to profound impacts on society, changing the way we live, work, and interact with each other. However, these rapid advances have given rise to new legal challenges and upended the balance between the interests of corporations and consumers regarding privacy, ownership of personal data, and fundamental concepts of intellectual property. As multi-billion-dollar corporations thrive by monetizing personal data, existing legal frameworks struggle to address privacy violations in this evolving landscape. This Comment sheds light on contemporary data privacy challenges by juxtaposing how the law has previously developed in response to new technology with the current gaps in federal legislation and argues that outdated statutes offer no recourse for contemporary Internet privacy violations that were not anticipated. This Comment underscores the growing public interest in robust privacy protection, evidenced by the emergence of voluntary market-level regulations. Despite making progress, these market-level solutions fall short for the reasons explored in this Comment, leaving consumer privacy vulnerable without a clear avenue for protection or legal redress.
To address this problem, this Comment advocates for the implementation of a private right of action to effectuate meaningful accountability against data abusers and reshape the data privacy landscape. Specifically, this Comment aims to resolve the “privacy dilemma” by leveraging a common law privacy tort and proposes a framework that centers on consumer consent with context-relevant factors to analyze. Specifically, it argues for the expansion of intrusion upon seclusion in Internet privacy disputes with the goal of establishing clear boundaries for the tort’s scope and application to cases where corporations have exceeded or improperly obtained user consent. Courts should adopt this proposed framework to address the modern Internet privacy concerns in light of advancing technology. Without clearly delineated responsibilities and liabilities that consider the context and scope of user consent, corporations will continue to weaponize user consent and sidestep privacy-by-design defaults.
Recommended Citation
Solberg, Amber L.
(2024)
"To Track or Not to Track: The Privacy Dilemma and the Veil of Consumer Choice,"
Liberty University Law Review: Vol. 18:
Iss.
3, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lu_law_review/vol18/iss3/5