Antitrust and Consumer Protection
Competition: Spring 2015, Vol. 24, No. 1
Content
- California Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law and Federal and State Procedural Law Developments
- Chair's Column
- Editor's Note
- Keynote Address: a Conversation With the Honorable Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, Justice of the California Supreme Court
- Major League Baseball Is Exempt From the Antitrust Laws - Like It or Not: the "Unrealistic," "Inconsistent," and "Illogical" Antitrust Exemption For Baseball That Just Won't Go Away.
- Masthead
- Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide: In the Age of Big Data Is Data Security Possible and Can the Enforcement Agencies and Private Litigation Ensure Your Online Information Remains Safe and Private? a Roundtable
- Restoring Balance In the Test For Exclusionary Conduct
- St. Alphonsus Medical Center-nampa and Ftc V St. Luke's Health System Ltd.: a Panel Discussion On This Big Stakes Trial
- St. Alphonsus Medical Center - Nampa, Inc., Et Al. and Federal Trade Commission, Et Al. V St. Luke's Health System, Ltd., and Saltzer Medical Group, P.a.: a Physicians' Practice Group Merger's Journey Through Salutary Health-related Goals, Irreparable Harm, Self-inflicted Wounds, and the Remedy of Divestiture
- The Baseball Exemption: An Anomaly Whose Time Has Run
- The Continuing Violations Doctrine: Limitation In Name Only, or a Resuscitation of the Clayton Act's Statute of Limitations?
- The Doctor Is In, But Your Medical Information Is Out Trends In California Privacy Cases Relating To Release of Medical Information
- The State of Data-breach Litigation and Enforcement: Before the 2013 Mega Breaches and Beyond
- The United States V. Bazaarvoice Merger Trial: a Panel Discussion Including Insights From Trial Counsel
- United States V. Bazaarvoice: the Role of Customer Testimony In Clayton Act Merger Challenges
- How Viable Is the Prospect of Enforcement of Privacy Rights In the Age of Big Data? An Overview of Trends and Developments In Consumer Privacy Class Actions
HOW VIABLE IS THE PROSPECT OF ENFORCEMENT OF PRIVACY RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF BIG DATA? AN OVERVIEW OF TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN CONSUMER PRIVACY CLASS ACTIONS
By Matthew George1
I. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
A nationwide retailer is hacked and account numbers for millions of customers hit the black market for criminals to use to commit fraud. A hospital leaks its patients’ medical records on the Internet and reveals their diagnoses. Social media users learn companies are harvesting their private messages for data to sell them products. Each of these scenarios has become increasingly common news in the digital age of big data.
So where does that leave consumers when their personal information is exposed or misused? What recourse, if any, do they have in court when their privacy has been violated? While there are some laws that provide guidance on how personal information must be secured, many provide no private cause of action to consumers when their data is actually exposed. And, courts have dismissed many privacy cases at the pleading stage by rejecting plaintiffs’ theories equating the loss or exposure of personal data with monetary harm—despite the undisputed fact that personal information is valuable to the companies that hold it and the criminals who want it.2