Regalado, Antonio. "High Stakes in Internet Tracking," Technology Review, June 4, 2012.
From the article: .. "you might ask if there is any real harm in commercial tracking. Despite the hand-wringing, it's not so easy to find people who have been hurt by the collection of their personal data. Just ask the trial lawyers who have been bringing a ballooning number of privacy suits. At first, courts rebuffed their class-action claims; they could not show "injury in fact."
Recently, regulators have taken a more expansive view. The Federal Trade
Commission now says privacy-related harms needn't be economic or physical but
can also include practices that "unexpectedly reveal previously private
information" like purchasing habits. That is opening the legal
floodgates….Now that lawyers are involved, you'd be right to wonder if some
useful enterprise is in the crosshairs. The answer, for some, is yes—and that
enterprise is innovation." Read more
