The FTC was early to recognize that the ease with which online firms could collect and share consumer information would make privacy a core consumer protection issue. The FTC skillfully has used case-by-case enforcement under its section 5 authority to address privacy concerns for nearly...

One of the most vexing problems in privacy policy is identifying consumer harm from unwanted observation; because it is highly subjective and is likely to vary greatly throughout the population, it doesn't lend itself to easy measurement. Yet, these types of situations increasingly are the focal...

The FTC has been in the privacy game for almost twenty years. In that time span, the digital economy has exploded, dramatically increasing the importance of privacy regulation to the economy. Unfortunately, the sophistication of the FTC's privacy policy has yet to keep pace with its stature....

We compare the private and social incentives for privacy when sellers can commit to transparent privacy policies that are understood by consumers. The purpose is to establish a baseline for how well markets perform when firms' privacy policies are common knowledge. In this setting, if the market...

Privacy has begun to creep into antitrust discussions. In some ways, this should not be surprising. Some of the largest and most ubiquitous companies, like Google and Facebook, give away their services in return for consumer data. If information about ourselves really is the price we pay for...

This Chapter discusses the theories behind the call to incorporate privacy into antitrust and identifies some potential legal and economic hurdles to their application. Chief among them are (1) the extent to which privacy is an important dimension of competition; (2) identifying the underlying...