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19 Widener L.J. 893 (2009-2010)
Privacy Paradox 2.0

handle is hein.journals/wjpl19 and id is 901 raw text is: PRIVACY PARADOX 2.0

H. Brian Holland*
As a starting point, this essay offers six basic propositions.
First, the 'privacy paradox'  refers to inconsistencies between
individuals' [asserted] intentions to disclose personal information
and [individuals'] actual ... disclosure behaviors.' Put simply, we
indicate-at a granular level-specific items of personal information
that we will not disclose, but we then give away that same data
with what appears to be little regard for the risks of doing so and
for little in return.2 Second, the privacy paradox is a well-
established concept in many fields of the social sciences, even
though the precise contours and causes of the paradox are quite
controversial.3 Third, broadly speaking, legal scholarship has failed
to adequately consider either the various conceptions of the
privacy paradox set forth in other fields of scholarship or the
import of these conceptions to what may be intended or perceived
as more normative legal works.4 Fourth, this failure creates a
 Associate Professor of Law, Texas Wesleyan School of Law; J.D.,
American University Washington College of Law; LL.M., Columbia University
School of Law; Doctoral Candidate (mass communications, digital media),
Pennsylvania State University.
1 Patricia A. Norberg et al., The Privacy Paradox: Personal Information
Disclosure Intentions Versus Behaviors, 41 J. CONSUMER AFF. 100, 100 (2007).
This definition does not invoke concepts of willingness or knowledge, or a
more amorphous conception of privacy attitudes. See id. at 100-03. This
approach seeks to avoid, at least for the moment, the more protracted causation
argument that has dominated and obscured the descriptive statement of
condition, for example, that there is an inconsistency between assertion and
behavior. See id
21d,
3 See, e.g., Julia Lane, Administrative Transaction Data 12 (German
Council for Soc. & Econ. Data, Working Paper No. 52, 2009) (discussing the
relationship between ethics and privacy issues).
4 This broad statement is, of course, subject to notable exceptions. See
HELEN NISSENBAUM, PRIVACY IN CONTEXT: TECHNOLOGY, POLICY, AND THE
INTEGRITY OF SOCIAL LIFE 58-61, 125-26 (2010). See generally James
Grimmelmann, Saving Facebook, 94 IOWA L. REV. 1137 (2009) (discussing how
social networking sites are socially compelling, yet harmful to privacy interests).

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