I am pleased to announce the publication of my article, The Scope and Potential of FTC Data Protection., 83 George Washington Law Review 2230 (2015). I wrote the article with Professor Woodrow Hartzog.
The article addresses the scope of FTC authority in the areas of privacy and data security (which together we refer to as “data protection”). We argue that the FTC not only has the authority to regulate data protection to the extent it has been doing, but that its granted jurisdiction can expand its reach much more. Normatively, we argue that the FTC’s current scope of data protection authority is essential to the United States data protection regime and should be fully embraced to respond to the privacy harms unaddressed by existing remedies available in tort or contract, or by various statutes. In contrast to the legal theories underlying these other claims of action, the FTC can regulate with a much different and more flexible understanding of harm than one focused on monetary or physical injury.
We contend that the FTC can and should push the development of norms a little more (though not in an extreme or aggressive way). We discuss why the FTC should act with greater transparency and more nuanced sanctioning and auditing.
The article was part of a great symposium organized by the George Washington University Law Review: The FTC at 100.
Here is a table of contents of the issue, along with links to where you can access each essay and article.
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