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Unfair Commercial Practices: journal article

A Complementary Approach to Privacy Protection

Nico van Eijk, Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Emilie Kannekens

European Data Protection Law Review, Volume 3 (2017), Issue 3, Page 325 - 337

Millions of European internet users access online platforms where their personal data is being collected, processed, analysed or sold. The existence of some of the largest online platforms is entirely based on data driven business models. In the European Union, the protection of personal data is considered a fundamental right. Under Article 8(3) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, compliance with data protection rules should be subject to control by an independent authority. In the EU, enforcement of privacy rules almost solely takes place by the national data protection authorities. They typically apply sector-specific rules, based on the EU Data Protection Directive. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission is the primary enforcer of consumers’ (online) privacy interests. The agency’s competence is not based on the protection of fundamental rights, but on the basis that maintenance of a competitive, fair marketplace will provide the right choices for consumers to take. In this Article the US legal framework will be discussed and compared to the EU legal framework, which forms our finding that in the EU rules on unfair commercial practices could be enforced in a similar manner to protect people’s privacy. In the EU, the many frictions concerning the market/consumer-oriented use of personal data form a good reason to actually deal with these frictions in a market/consumer legal framework.


US Regulatory Values and Privacy Consequences journal article

Implications for the European Citizen

Chris Jay Hoofnagle

European Data Protection Law Review, Volume 2 (2016), Issue 2, Page 169 - 177

Europeans have long faced a regulatory challenge: how can the human rights and dignitary values that animate data protection law be protected in transborder data flows? With the proposal of the EU-US Privacy Shield, part of the challenge will be answered by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC is a small but powerful US agency established in 1914 to address problems of monopoly and trust. Shortly after its creation, the FTC turned its attention to consumer issues. Over the years, Congress has repeatedly empowered the FTC, and the agency has accomplished much on privacy matters. In a recent book, I recount the FTC’s privacy successes. But this article focuses on the limits of the FTC’s powers. The American business community has eschewed dignity as a privacy value in favour of economistic conceptions of privacy interests. This article explains how the FTC’s focus on economic liberty constrains how it can protect Europeans’ normative interests in privacy. First, this article recounts why the FTC has to find economic pretences to extend its reach to normative, dignity-based affronts to personality. The article then discusses the structural limits of the FTC and how these limits constrain privacy enforcement. The article concludes with a discussion of instruments that could bridge the gap between the FTC’s economistic conceptions of privacy and the values Europeans place on data protection.

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