Social Media Executives Should Pay for Privacy Protection (or Lack Thereof) - Proposes Legal Scholar
JERUSALEM, Israel (PRWEB) April 11, 2018 -- Social networks substantially contribute to enhanced speech, creativity, and communication. Yet, their practices of collecting and monetizing personal data of users pose severe privacy risks, as can be seen in the recent Facebook / Cambridge Analytica story. Compelling social networks to internalize these risks is crucial for the healthy evolution of social networking.
In this Article, that will be published in the Brooklyn Law Review titled "Pay for (privacy) performance" - Dr. Lital Helman proposes a novel approach to address this challenge: to link executive compensation in social networking firms to the quality of data-protection the company provides to its users.
This proposal is different from other solutions that have been proposed in the context of social media privacy in two significant ways. First, the direct policy object is not the firm itself. Rather, that executive compensation should be keyed to the level of privacy protection. Second, the proposal offers a dynamic solution, where privacy practices would adapt to changing privacy standards.
Implementation of this proposal would yield a number of key advantages. First, it would create a powerful incentive for executives of social networks to take account of the harms they cause to users’ privacy interests. Second, it would provide first-hand and up to date information about users’ changing needs and interests. Third, it would align the interests of social media executives with the long term interests of shareholders to maintain users’ trust in social media, in order for social networks to continue to attract a high volume of users and activity. Fourth, it would reduce the government’s role as both an interpreter and enforcer of users’ interests, and would overall simplify the privacy enforcement process and reduce its costs. Finally, it would allow social networks to develop and grow, by allowing all types of transactions to occur, as long as all privacy-related considerations are internalized.
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Dr. Lital Helman is a Senior Legal Scholar, in the areas of Law and Technology and Intellectual Property Law. She graduated with honors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (LL.B, Law & Philosophy), and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (LL.M, SJD), where she pursued her doctoral degree as a J. William Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Helman held research positions at Columbia University Law School and at the New York University School of Law.
She currently serves as a Senior Lecturer at the Ono Academic College Faculty of Law in Israel.
Dr. Helman is also a Director at GradTrain - the AI-driven guidance platform for international students, with users from over 150 countries.
Dr. Lital Helman, GradTrain, https://www.gradtrain.com, +972 523021270, [email protected]
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