BigTech and User Privacy Concerns Over Tracking​

By BK​

What do you need to know this week?

Over the last week, two ‘BigTech’ companies have come under scrutiny for their alleged breaches of user privacy rights over tracking concerns.

On Tuesday, Meta (formerly Facebook) agreed to pay a $90 million settlementto finally lay a decade-old privacy lawsuit to rest. The lawsuit accused the tech giant of two things: tracking its users’ internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website and compiling users’ browsing histories into ‘profiles’ which were sold on to advertisers. Meta has denied any wrongdoing despite settling the claim.

Similarly, Apple has announced plans to introduce a number of changes that would make it harder to misuse the ‘AirTag’ - a button-sized device designed to help users locate lost items by attaching them into any object. However, these devices can be misused as a ‘stalking tool’ by being hidden in a car or on personal items such as a bag.

Why is this important for your interviews?

In recent years, it has become clear that data privacy issues, such as tracking, have become the core of the BigTech monopoly debate. Every time you use your social media app or web browser, these companies grow their digital ‘warehouses’ of information about you - from your address and phone number, to your preference for plant-based over cow’s milk.

There are two core issues with BigTech’s monopolistic access, storage and exploitation of consumer data. Firstly, there aren’t many rules for BigTech to break. Rules only emerge when a governing body imposes them. However, BigTech’s products, services and platforms are evolving more rapidly than the law. Moreover, consumers are usually not “data literate enough” to understand the full value of their personal data and often hand over their data for free.

Therefore, even if a consumer wants to take control of their data, they often lack the means to do so by law and even if they would like to do so now, the laws enacted have arrived a little too late and are often shrouded by legal jargon hardly accessible to the average consumer.

So, where does this leave us now?

It seems we’re currently stuck in a loop of government and regulator-launched probes and lawsuits which incrementally drive changes in data privacy laws. Despite all this, BigTech’s monopoly on consumer data seems to remain mostly unscathed.

How is this topic relevant to law firms?

Law firms are increasingly advising clients over how to avoid potential data privacy breaches where a proposed deal or project handles large amounts of consumer data,

One possible future development of the law to better protect consumer data privacy rights is to create a legal infrastructure allowing a ‘class or group actions’ (also known as ‘collective redress actions’) for breaches of consumer data privacy rights. They can work to change public opinion, for example in forcing Big Tobacco to admit the correlation between smoking and cancer, or by paving the way for the mandatory use of car seatbelts.

Finally, law firms with strong litigation teams may be called to fend off any high profile data privacy lawsuits and investigations brought by regulators.


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