Law Commons^™

Restoring Americans' Privacy In Electronic Commerce Symposium - The Legal And Policy Framework For Global Electronic Commerce: A Progress Report, Joel R. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States today, substance abusers have greater privacy than web users and privacy has become the critical issue for the development of electronic commerce. Yet, the U.S. government’s privacy policy relies on industry self-regulation rather than legal rights. This article argues that the theory of self-regulation has normative flaws and that public experience shows the failure of industry to implement fair information practices. Together the flawed theory and data scandals demonstrate the sophistry of U.S. policy. The article then examines the comprehensive legal rights approach to data protection that has been adopted by governments around the world, most …