Digital privacy

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Digital privacy is often used in contexts that promote advocacy on behalf of individual and consumer privacy rights in e-services and is typically used in opposition to the business practices of many e-marketers, businesses, and companies to collect and use such information and data.^[1][2] Digital privacy, a crucial aspect of modern online interactions and services, can be defined under three sub-related categories: information privacy, communication privacy, and individual privacy.^[3]

Digital privacy has increasingly become a topic of interest as information and data shared over the social web have continued to become more and more commodified; social media users are now considered unpaid "digital labors", as one pays for "free" e-services through the loss of their privacy.^[4] For example, between 2005 and 2011, the change in levels of disclosure for different profile items on Facebook shows that, over the years, people have wanted to keep more information private.^[5] Observing the seven-year span, Facebook gained a profit of $100 billion through the collection and sharing of their users' data with third-party advertisers.^[4]

The more a user shares on social networks, the more privacy is lost. All of the information and data one shares is connected to clusters of similar information. As the user continues to share their productive expression, it gets matched with the respective cluster, and their speech and expression are no longer only in the possession of them or of their social circle. This can be seen as a consequence of building social capital. As people create new and diverse ties on social networks, data becomes linked. This decrease in privacy continues until bundling appears (when the ties become strong and the network more homogeneous).^[6]

As digital privacy concerns grow, regulatory approaches have emerged to protect user data across various sectors. In the United States, privacy regulation has traditionally been sector-based, with different industries having their own rules. Since the 1970s, laws have covered areas like financial services, healthcare, and education. However, recent efforts, such as the American Data Privacy and Protection Act of 2022 (ADPPA), signal a shift toward a comprehensive privacy framework. This mirrors the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which provides uniform privacy rules across all sectors.^[7]

A key challenge in digital privacy regulation is tailoring data protection rules for specific industries, particularly in digital spaces like social media, search engines, and mobile apps, where data collection practices often exceed existing laws. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has played a central role in addressing these concerns, with its growing expertise in the digital landscape. As the digital economy evolves, there is increasing pressure for stronger privacy laws that balance privacy protection with competition. Advocates argue that this balance is necessary to protect users from exploitation by companies with massive data collection capabilities.