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About the book
Publisher description: Our data is besieged every day by tech companies, leading to hidden AI harms in the information economy. Companies can do this because our laws are built on outdated ideas that trap lawmakers, regulators, and courts into wrong assumptions, resulting in ineffective approaches to one of the most pressing concerns of our generation. Drawing on behavioral science, social data science, and economics, this book dispels enduring misconceptions about AI-driven interactions. Its exploration offers a view of why current regulations fail to protect us against digital harms, particularly those created by AI. The book then proposes a better response: accountability for corporate data practices. Ultimately, accountability requires creating a new type of liability system for AI harms that recognizes the social value of people’s privacy.
ISBN: 9781108995825 (online); 9781108995443 (paperback); 9781316518113 (hardcover)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108995825
Donner Prize Jury: Who can access our information and what they are doing with it has become an issue of increasing concern to individuals, corporations and governments worldwide. In The Privacy Fallacy, Cofone describes why our current laws fail to protect us against corporate digital harm. His proposed reforms put the onus on corporations to use data responsibly and be held accountable for any violations that result in loss of privacy and attendant harms. Through well-defined issues, sound analysis and evidence-based arguments, Cofone navigates the complexities of privacy, harm, and power dynamics in the information economy.
Back cover
In this superb book, Ignacio Cofone expertly threads together privacy law’s many missteps and proposes a way forward that doesn’t rest on myths and misconceptions. The Privacy Fallacy clearly and effectively stakes out an essential turning point for lawmakers and society: We either commit to holding companies liable for the full range of harms they cause, or we continue to indulge in the fantasy that privacy can be individually negotiated and that our laws have it under control."
Woodrow Hartzog - Boston University
author of Privacy's Blueprint and Breached!
With the rigor of an economist and the heart of a humanist, Cofone explores why privacy law has been disappointingly powerless in today’s data-driven society. He proposes a new understanding of privacy harm to ground a more effective liability regime. A clear and engaging read for experts and interested laypeople alike."
Katherine J. Strandburg - New York University
editor of Governing Knowledge Commons
To protect privacy in the digital age, Ignacio Cofone argues, we must rethink privacy harms. These harms are social and systemic as well as individual, and they will not be remedied by market and contractual approaches. This beautifully written book is an excellent introduction to problems of digital exploitation that affect everyone."
Jack Balkin - Yale Law School
author of Democracy and Dysfunction and The Cycles of Constitutional Time
Prizes
Winner of the 2024 Canadian Book Club Awards for best book in the nonfiction/education category
Finalist for the 2024 Donner Prize for best public policy book in Canada
Longlist for the Inner Temple Book Prize 2025
Excerpts
The Hill Times (book conclusion)
The Hub Canada (book introduction)
ProMarket Blog (dark patterns chapter)
The Hub Canada (book introduction)
ProMarket Blog (dark patterns chapter)
Reviews
Scott Skinner-Thompson, JOTWELL (2024) [here]
Frank Pasquale, 5.3 JLPE 631 [here]
Christopher D'Souza, 22.1 CJLT 92 [here]
Donald Riccomini, 71.3 STC 104 [here]
Symposium in Balkinization (2024)
Frank Pasquale, "Valuing Privacy Harms while Structuring Data Governance" [here]
Claudia E. Haupt, "Asking the Right Questions: How The Privacy Fallacy Can Guide Health Law Out of the HIPAA Trap" [here]
Alicia Solow-Niederman, "Taking Power Seriously: The Politics of Privacy" [here]
Yan Shvartzshnaider, "Privacy Inserts" [here]
Nikita Aggarwal, "Autonomy v. Autonomy in the Information Economy" [here]
Nikolas Guggenberger, "Privacy Beyond Consent: Cofone’s Call for Privacy Torts" [here]
Elettra Bietti, "Can Private Law Protect Privacy in Today’s Economy?" [here]
Elana Zeide, "Privacy Loss and Harm in an Era of Inference" [here]
Margot E. Kaminski, "Data Protection: Individuals and Institutions" [here]
Special Issue in Lex Electronica (2026)
Nicolas Vermeys, "Introduction to the Special Issue" [here]
Elana Zeide, "Recognizing Privacy Harm: Progress and Pressing Questions" [here]
Claudia E. Haupt, "A Roadmap Out of Health Law's Privacy Fallacy for the AI Age" [here]
Teresa Scassa, "Intrusion upon Seclusion, Gender, and the Privacy Fallacy" [here]
Stav Zeitouni, "Information Privacy and the Critique of Control" [here]
Jonathon W. Penney, "Privacy Fallacies and Fatalism" [here]
Special Issue in European Journal of Privacy Law & Technologies (2025)
Lucilla Gatt, "The Data Protection Law Fallacy in the Information Economy" [here]
Klaus Heine, "What Do Privacy Scholars Maximize? Law as a Practice and Law as a Science" [here]
Shaira Thobani, "The 'Consent Illusion': Where is the Fallacy?" [here]
Salvatore Orlando, "Reflections upon 'The Privacy Fallacy' by Ignacio Cofone" [here]
Beatrice Schütte & Katri Havu, "Damages Liability for Privacy Infringements: The Case Law of the CJEU" [here]
Adrian Kuenzler, "Attuning Big Tech Regulation in Light of Data-Driven Markets" [here]
Shu Li, "Contract Model versus Tort Model: One View of the Privacy Harm" [here]
Erica Palmerini, "Data Protection Law and the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence" [here]
Pauline Trouillard, "The Power of Civil Liability to Address Harms in the Information Economy" [here]
