Nikita Munjal is a 3L JD/MBA Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. This article was written as a requirement for Prof. Pina D’Agostino’s IP Intensive Program.

Using the Internet inevitably requires consenting to have your personal information used, collected, and disclosed by the websites you visit. A common reason for individuals, corporations, and non-profit organizations to collect your personal information is to influence your behaviour online, from your to your . One of the most effective ways to influence consumer behaviour online is through targeted advertising.

Value for Advertisers

Access to personal information has become necessary for advertisers to convert potential leads into customers. Think back to 2012, for example, when a suggested that a statistician working at Target predicted a teenage girl’s pregnancy based on her shopping habits. What did Target do with this information? It mailed her coupons for baby clothes and cribs.

that the value of your personal information to advertisers depends on various factors. Factors influencing value include your gender, race, and sensitivity of the information (that is, cost more than ). If, for example, the target audience for a new sneaker launch is young males of middle eastern origin, the spent to acquire your personal information is a minor investment to incur to influence you to purchase $180 sneakers.

Value for Users

Traditionally, users have valued the ability to share their personal information while using online services, like search engines or social media platforms, citing their .

However, increasingly, . This trend has mobilized startups in Silicon Valley to appeal to privacy-conscious users by providing them an incentive to share their personal information. Known as paid-to-surf models, companies in this space require their users to install browser extensions to track their browsing.

What monetary value do some privacy-conscious users demand to share their personal information? $20 a month for users of . Others are . While these paid-to-surf models have the potential to be disruptive, they are not yet a viable alternative, as users must surf a certain amount before they can cash out.  

Value Going Forward

The tech industry has built empires based on collecting, using, and selling its users’ personal information to third-party advertisers. Surprisingly, some factions of the tech industry are modifying their business models to limit the tracking of personal information. Apple, for example, introduced a new iOS in 2021, s. Similarly, on its Chrome browser is estimated to impact millions of advertisers.

Apple and Google argue that these changes are necessary to respond to increasing and customer sensitivity to sharing personal information (the IPilogue has documented increased regulation in the and ). However, , including , lament that the changes are veiled anti-competitive practices.

Interestingly, increasing barriers to the online advertising ecosystem may benefit users. If access to personal information becomes impeded, interested parties may need to incentivize users to share their personal information, increasing users’ bargaining power. Although it is unclear what effect Apple and Google’s changes will have on the ecosystem, I am hopeful that users can leverage more control over their personal information for fair compensation by technology companies or advertisers for their valuable commodity.

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In testing, the cars, which were manned by trained operators, drove around California, from Mountain View to Santa Clara and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They successfully navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and even made it around Lake Tahoe. The test cars logged over 140,000 miles in total. The following year, explaining how autonomous cars could save lives, time, and fuel. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported , the leading cause of death . Furthermore, the majority of car accidents can be attributed to driver error and other human factors (from to as high as ) that would not be present in driverless cars.

Still, the public has not been unanimously welcoming of autonomous cars. concerned with privacy issues. Since Google’s cars rely heavily on Google Maps’ GPS technology, they could track the car wherever it goes. Not only would this make many people uneasy, the data could potentially be presented as evidence in court. In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court ruled that data collected from a GPS device police placed on the underside of the defendant’s car without a valid warrant was not admissible. However, there was no discussion on how to treat such information held by a third party like Google Maps. In the past, American courts have consistently held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information voluntarily turned over to third parties (e.g. Smith v. Maryland, ; United States v. Miller, . This premise was challenged by Justice Sotomayor in (at 5), who argued that “[t]his approach is ill suited to the digital age." Indeed, we often disclose personal information (like phone numbers, visited URLs, purchase histories) to third parties in our day-to-day activities. This could very well include our geographical location if autonomous driving becomes prevalent on the roads.

legal issue is accountability. While driverless cars may well significantly reduce the frequency of motor vehicle accidents, the number will never be zero. The question is, when driverless cars do get into accidents, who is liable? An by Andrew P. Garza recently published in the New England Law Review posited that product liability law is capable of handling the advent of autonomous cars just as it handled earlier safety devices such as seat belts, air bags, and cruise control. Garza argued that though manufacturers have been historically resistant to incorporating new technologies fearing increase in liability, they would benefit from autonomous vehicles in the long run because of three reasons. Firstly, autonomous vehicles are safer on the whole, which leads to a net decrease in manufacturer liability and the cost of insurance. Second, the sophisticated technology of autonomous vehicles will reduce litigation costs by decreasing reliance on expert testimony as well as the number of cases that go to trial. Electronic Data Recorders and Lane Departure Warning System cameras installed in driverless cars will act as black boxes to record information on how the accident occurred. This objective information will aid parties in product liability actions to assess the potential outcome of their suits, making trial outcomes more predictable and settlements more likely. Lastly, Garza reasoned that since modern customers are more likely to purchase vehicles with higher safety ratings, the market would inevitably be promising for autonomous vehicles as they gain mainstream awareness.

One point to mention is that Garza was strictly discussing autonomous vehicles that can be overridden by human drivers (like Google’s self-driving cars). However, he suggested that once these overridable autonomous vehicles become popular, there would likely be a shift to fully autonomous, nonoverridable vehicles. Although three states now allow driverless cars on the road, a licensed human driver is still to be in the driver’s seat. The human driver must be able to take over in the event that the technology malfunctioned or was unable to anticipate or accommodate some obstacle. Should the human driver fail to perform adequately, s/he would inevitably be accountable for any damages incurred. If fully autonomous, nonoverridable vehicles ever become permitted on the road, the lack of any human driver would present further liability to manufacturers.

Nancy Situ is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School and is currently enrolled in Osgoode’s Intellectual Property Law and Technology Intensive Program.  As part of the program requirements, students are asked to write a blog on a topic of their choice.

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