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 Companies can do this because our laws are built on outdated ideas that trap lawmakers, regulators, and courts into wrong assumptions, resulting in ineffective approaches to one of the most pressing concerns of our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.
The Privacy Fallacy is a nonfiction book on the myths and misconceptions about privacy in the age of AI.
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 Disfunction and The Cycles of Constitutional Time
Excerpts
Reviews
Scott Skinner-Thompson, "Getting Real about Protecting Privacy" [here]
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]