Abstract

I will consider the past, present, and possible futures of the economics of privacy. First, I will review the rise of this field of research up to the current days, and celebrate its successes. Next, I will take stock of the present and focus on the unintended consequences of those successes: I will highlight possible shortcomings of the economics of privacy that arise from its dismissal of critical privacy theories from other social sciences. Finally, I will consider a possible alternative future for the economics of privacy. I will propose ways of framing the economic debate around privacy that deviate from the focus of much (albeit not all) current research, which tends to concentrate on the economic costs of privacy protection at the expense of a richer array of yet unanswered questions.

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