Margaret Jane Radin

Consumer Law Responding to David E. Pozen & Lina M. Khan, A Skeptical View of Information Fiduciaries Response by Jack M. Balkin The full text of this Response may be found by clicking on the PDF link to the left. In the digital age people are increasingly dependent on and vulnerable to digital businesses that collect data from them and use data about them. These companies use data to predict and control what end users do, and to sell advertisers access to those end users.

In an overwhelmingly digital age, individuals are put at risk of serious injuries such as identity theft, fraud, and even personal embarrassment if their data is exposed to malicious third parties.1× See, e.g., Stacy Cowley, Equifax to Pay at Least $650 Million in Largest-Ever Data Breach Settlement, N.Y. Times (July 22, 2019), https://nyti.ms/2YgXFqJ [https://perma.cc/2GP4-BEC7] (describing historic monetary settlement following loss of millions of individuals’ sensitive personal information...

Market-inalienability has a central place in developed societies that embrace private law institutions and a traditional understanding of the role of the polity in underwriting, managing, and preserving those institutions. Market-inalienability is a form of non-commodification.