The PII problem: Privacy and a new concept of personally identifiable information

New York University Law Review

Volumn 86, Issue 6, 2011, Pages 1814-1894

  Schwartz, Paul M ^a   Solove, Daniel J ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 84855303844     PISSN: 00287881     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (477)

1. See Online Privacy: What Does It Mean to Parents and Kids?, Commonsense MEDIA (2010), http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/privacypoll.pdf (detailing concerns of adults and youth regarding online privacy).
2. U.S. Internet Users Ready To Limit Online Tracking for Ads, Gallup (Dec. 21, 2010), http://www.gallup.com/poll/145337/Internet-Users-Ready-Limit-Online-Tracking-Ads.aspx (indicating that Internet users support limiting tracking measures that may impinge on their privacy).
3. Consider, for example, recent reports by the Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission on online privacy, which suggest that both entities plan to play important and perhaps competing roles in this area. Dep't of Commerce, INTERNET Policy Task Force, Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the INTERNET Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework (2010).
4. Fed. Trade Comm'n, PROTECTING Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change (2010) [hereinafter FTC, PROTECTING Privacy].
5. Examples include the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506 (2006), the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act, 15 U.S.C. §§6801-6809, the Video Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2710, and the HITECH Act, Pub. L. No. 111-5, 123 Stat. 226 (2009) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.), discussed infra Part I.B.
6. Examples include California's Song-Beverly Credit Card Act, Cal. Civ. CODE § 1747 (West 2009) and the breach notification laws that have now been enacted in fortysix states, discussed infra Part I.B. For a discussion of the breach notification statutes, which govern disclosure procedures for data security breaches, see Daniel J. Solove & Paul M. Schwartz, Privacy Law Fundamentals 135-39 (2011). For an up to date listing of these statutes, see State Security Breach Notification Laws, Nat'l CONFERENCE OF State Legislatures, http://www.ncsl.org/Default.aspx?TabId=13489 (last updated Oct. 12, 2010).
7. See infra Part II. B (discussing ways in which data that is non-PII can be converted to PII).
8. Paul Ohm, Broken Promises of Privacy, 57 UCLA L. Rev. 1701 (2010).
9. See infra Part IV. D (discussing differences between "identified" and "identifiable" data).
10. Pub. L. No. 98-549, § 2, 98 Stat. 2780 (codified as amended at 47 U.S.C. § 521 (2006).
11. See §§ 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II), 1227(a)(2)(B)(i)-55 and accompanying text (discussing the Cable Act and the new model for privacy safety statutes).
12. See infra Part III. B (discussing the increase in food marketing to youth).
13. 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506 (2006).
14. See infra Part IV. B (differentiating between rules and standards in the context of their use in legislation defining PII).
15. Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193 (1890).
16. 495 U.S. at 205. As Warren and Brandeis wrote: "The principle which protects personal writings and all other personal productions, not against theft and physical appropriation, but against publication in any form, is in reality not the principle of private property, but that of an inviolate personality. " 495 U.S. at 602. For a discussion of this conception of privacy as a right of personality, see Paul M. Schwartz & Karl-Nicholas Peifer, Prosser's Privacy and the German Right of Personality: Are Four Privacy Torts Better than One Unitary Concept?, 98 Calif. L. Rev. 1925, 1943-44 (2010).
17. Warren & Brandeis, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 205. In their view, as later summarized by Robert Post, a privacy tort was necessary in order to protect each person's "emotional integrity. " Robert C. Post, Rereading Warren and Brandeis: Privacy, Property, and Appropriation, 41 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 647, 662-63 (1991). For many years after Warren and Brandeis's article, "other authors on the subject of [tort] privacy also rallied around the notion of the right of personality as the basis for" privacy interests. Schwartz & Peifer, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., 1944-47.
18. Warren & Brandeis, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 196.
19. William L. Prosser, Privacy, 48 Calif. L. Rev. 383 (1960).
20. 495 U.S. at 389-407. For a discussion of the doctrinal role of Prosser's concept of tort privacy, see G. Edward White, Tort Law in America: An Intellectual HISTORY 158-61 (2003).
21. See, e.g., Prosser, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 392-98 (providing examples of privacy invasions, all of which involve identified persons).
22. Daniel J. Solove, Privacy and Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy, 53 Stan. L. Rev. 1393, 1402 (2001). For classic early studies in American social sciences and law that trace this connection between the computer and privacy concerns, see generally Arthur R. Miller, The Assault on Privacy: Computers, Data Banks, and Dossiers (1971) and Alan Westin, PRIVACY AND Freedom (1967).
23. Privacy Prot. Study Comm'n, Personal Privacy in an Information SOCIETY app. 5: Technology and Privacy 21 (1977) [hereinafter Privacy Comm'n, Technology & Privacy].
24. 495 U.S. at 602.
25. 495 U.S. at 21-22. In his prescient study, The Assault on Privacy, Miller also discusses computers' so-called retrieval capacity, which is the ability of computers to filter through large amounts of information, and highlights the relevant dangers thereof. Miller, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 39.
26. Privacy Comm'n, Technology & Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 45.
27. 495 U.S. at 44.
28. 15 U.S.C. § 1681b (2006).
29. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g (2006).
30. 5 U.S.C. § 552a (2006).
31. 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(a).
32. 495 U.S. at 602. § 1681a(d)(1).
33. Solove & Schwartz, Fundamentals, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 86-91.
34. 495 U.S. at 602.
35. see also Practising Law Inst., Proskauer on Privacy 2-7 to 2-14 (Kristen J. Mathews ed., 2011) (hereinafter Proskauer on Privacy) (defining "consumer report" and "credit reporting agency" and discussing how these terms operate under FCRA).
36. As Proskauer on Privacy observes, "[g]iven that the definition of a CRA depends largely on the definition of 'consumer report,' the fact that a particular set of information is not a consumer report can prevent a person or entity from acting as a CRA for the purposes of the Act. " Proskauer on Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 2-11.
37. The statute makes clear, for example, that it does not apply to a party, such as a bank, that furnishes financial information that goes into a consumer report. 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(d)(2)(A)(i) (2006). For case law reaching this conclusion, see Mirfasihi v. Fleet Mortg. Corp., 551 F.3d 682, 686 (7th Cir. 2008) and Smith v. First Nat'l Bank of Atlanta, 837 F.2d 1575, 1578 (11th Cir. 1988). Although such entities provide a CRA with information about consumers, they themselves are not in the business of supplying a consumer report to third parties. FCRA contains another problematic and explicit exception to its definition of consumer report. This term does not extend to the sharing of information among affiliated entities, so long as the consumer is given an opportunity to opt out of such sharing. 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(d)(2)(A)(iii). In Congressional testimony in 2003, Joel Reidenberg pointed to the consequences of this exemption: It "means that credit report information loses protection when shared with far-flung related companies. " Affiliate Sharing Practices and Their Relationship to the Fair Credit Reporting Act: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on Banking, Hous., and Urban Affairs, 108th Cong. 8 (2003) (statement of Joel R. Reidenberg, Professor, Fordham University School of Law).
38. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(2) (2006). While Congress does not define PII in the statute, a federal regulation provides a broad approach to it. See 34 C.F.R. § 99.3 (2010) (defining PII to include a student's name, address, and social security number, as well as several other "indirect identifiers").
39. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(2).
40. 495 U.S. at 602.
41. 495 U.S. at 602. § 1232g(a)(4)(A)(i)-(ii).
42. James Rapp, 5 Education Law § 13.04[7][a] (2010). The Supreme Court has also heard the siren call of protection based on type of record rather than individual identifiability. In 2002, in Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo, 534 U.S. 426 (2002), the Supreme Court went further than even FERPA's statutory language and strongly suggested in dicta that FERPA records are only those kept in a permanent file and by a "central custodian" at the school. 495 U.S. at 434-35.
43. Lynn M. Daggett, FERPA in the Twenty-First Century: Failure To Effectively Regulate Privacy for All Students, 58 Cath. U. L. Rev. 59, 100-01 (2008).
44. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(a)(6).
45. Daggett, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 78-79. Regarding these changes, Congress placed modest limits on the ability of elementary and secondary schools to collect and disclose student information for commercial purposes. While schools must give parents an opportunity to opt out of such sharing, the law does not ban sharing for commercial purposes and does not require affirmative consent from parents. USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-56, 115 Stat. 272, 367-68 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(j)(1) (2006).
46. Daggett, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 89.
47. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(2).
48. 5 U.S.C. § 552a(a)(5) (2006).
49. 495 U.S. at 602. A record includes "any item, collection, or grouping of information about an individual that is maintained by an agency... and that contains his name, or the identifying number, symbol, or other identifying particular assigned to the individual, such as a finger or voice print or a photograph. " 495 U.S. at 602. § 552a(a)(4).
50. As the Department of Justice's guide to the Privacy Act summarizes, "[t]he highly technical 'system of records' definition is perhaps the single most important Privacy Act concept, because... it makes coverage under the Act dependent upon the method of retrieval of a record rather than its substantive content. " Dep't of Justice, OVERVIEW OF THE Privacy Act of 1974, at 25 (2010) (emphasis added).
51. See OMB Privacy Act Implementation, 40 Fed. Reg. 28,948, 28,952 (July 9, 1975) (defining "system of records" as limited to "information [that] is retrieved by the name of the individual or by some... other identifying particular assigned to the individual").
52. Privacy Prot. Study Comm'n, The Privacy Act of 1974: An Assessment 6-7 (1974), available at http://epic.org/privacy/ppsc1977report/appendix4.html (providing an example of a Veterans' Administration search by psychiatric diagnosis that was not covered by the Act).
53. Privacy Prot. Study Comm'n, Personal Privacy in an Information SOCIETY 59-61 (1977) [hereinafter Privacy Comm'n, Personal Privacy].
54. Pub. L. No. 98-549, 98 Stat. 2779 (1984) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 47 U.S.C.).
55. 47 U.S.C. § 551(a)(1)(A) (2006). Nevertheless, the legislative history of the Cable Act proves singularly unhelpful regarding the selection of this term as the trigger for the statute's coverage. See H.R. Rep. No. 98-934, at 76-79 (1984) (stating only that PII "would include specific information about the subscriber, or a list of names and addresses on which the subscriber is included, but does not include aggregate information about subscribers which does not identify particular persons").
56. In the United States, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare had first mentioned FIPs in an influential report in 1973. U.S. Dep't of Health, Educ. & Welfare, Records Computers and the Rights of Citizens xxi, xxiii, xxix-xxx (1973). On the policy history of FIPs, see Priscilla M. Regan, Legislating Privacy 73-86 (1995). For an introduction to FIPs, see Daniel J. Solove & Paul M. Schwartz, Information Privacy Law 655-58 (3d ed., 2009) [hereinafter Solove & Schwartz, IPL], and Paul M. Schwartz, Preemption and Privacy, 118 Yale L.J. 902, 907-08 (2009).
57. 47 U.S.C. § 551(b)(1). Note, however, that personal information about programming choices is not protected, see §§ 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II), 1227(a)(2)(B)(i)-61 and accompanying text.
58. 47 U.S.C. § 551(d).
59. 495 U.S. at 602. § 551(a)(1)(A).
60. The Ngram Viewer, a tool launched by Google Labs, creates a graphical year-byyear representation of how often a phrase has been used in books. It draws on nearly 5.2 million books from a period between 1500 and 2000 A.D., which the Google Library Project has digitalized. Patricia Cohen, In 500 Billion Words, New Window on Culture, N.Y. Times, Dec. 17, 2010, at A3.
61. Appendix A to this Article contains the Ngram Viewer's chart for this term between 1950 and 2000. The chart also shows how this attention only intensified throughout the 1990s with the emergence of the Internet and other threats to privacy. Infra App. A.
62. As one law review article stated, "[t]o prevent cable from turning the television set into an Orwellian nightmare, the [Cable] Act creates a framework for the protection of subscriber privacy. " Michael I. Meyerson, The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984: A Balancing Act on the Coaxial Wires, 19 Ga. L. Rev. 543, 612 (1985).
63. see also John Shattuck, In the Shadow of 1984: National Identification Systems, Computer-Matching, and Privacy in the United States, 35 Hastings L.J. 991, 991 (1984) ("Recent actions by the federal government ha[d] brought the technology... invasion from the realm of science fiction into the real world of public policy. ").
64. Mindy E. Wachtel, Note, Videotex: A Welcome New Technology or an Orwellian Threat to Privacy?, 2 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 287, 311 (1983) (noting that a two-way cable system "could quickly destroy individual privacy by filtering vast quantities of intimate information to commercially exploitive enterprises, overzealous government enforcement officials or the idly curious"). For illustrative accounts of threats to privacy in the popular press in 1983 and 1984 that also discussed Orwell's famous novel, see Walter Cronkite, Orwell's '1984'-Nearing?, N.Y. Times, June 5, 1983, at E23, Thomas Ferraro, Is an Orwellian Society Upon Us?, L.A. Times, Dec. 26, 1983, at D31, and John J. Fialka, The Time Has Come for Deciding if 1984 Will Resemble 1984, Wall St. J., June 7, 1983, at 1, 17.
65. As Meyerson noted in 1985: [A]dvanced cable systems are able to monitor continually the viewing choices of each cable household. This capability presents a serious potential for invading the privacy of the cable subscriber. Not only can intimate information be gleaned easily by the cable operator, but an unprecedented amount and variety of information about an individual can also be inexpensively accumulated from one source-the cable system. Meyerson, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 612.
66. See Wachtel, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 287-88 (describing videotex and its potential for information sharing).
67. 495 U.S. at 290.
68. For illustrative laws, see Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506 (2006), Video Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2710 (2006), Driver's Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725 (2006), and Information Practices Act of 1977, Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1798.29, 1798.82, 1798.84 (2008).
69. For two examples, compare William McGeveran, Disclosure, Endorsement, and Identity in Social Marketing, 2009 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1105, 1135 (2009) (using "personal information" in place of PII), with Robert Sprague & Corey Ciocchetti, Preserving Identities: Protecting Personal Identifying Information Through Enhanced Privacy Policies and Laws, 9 Alb. L.J. Sci. & Tech. 91, 92 (2009) (using "personal information" interchangeably with PII).
70. See infra Part II. B (describing means by which data can be made identifiable).
71. See infra Part III. A (discussing behavioral marketing and the concerns it poses for privacy).
72. FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at iv.
73. In this report, the FTC stated that it would leave open the question of the feasibility of a proposed definition of PII centered on data that can be "reasonably linked to a specific consumer, computer, or other device. " 495 U.S. at 43. The FTC's concern was whether such a definition was "feasible, particularly with respect to data that, while not currently considered 'linkable,' may become so in the future. " 495 U.S. at 602.
74. Jerry Kang, Information Privacy in Cyberspace Transactions, 50 Stan. L. Rev. 1193, 1206-11 (1998).
75. Ohm, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1742.
76. For a discussion of the distinction between rules and standards, see Carol M. Rose, Crystals and Mud in Property Law, 40 Stan. L. Rev. 577, 592-93 (1988), and Kathleen M. Sullivan, The Supreme Court, 1991 Term: Foreword: The Justices of Rules and Standards, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 22, 57-59 (1992).
77. These examples follow from two Supreme Court decisions: Pokora v. Wabash Ry., 292 U.S. 98, 101-02 (1934), and Baltimore & Ohio R.R. v. Goodman, 275 U.S. 66, 70 (1927).
78. Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988, 18 U.S.C. § 2710 (2006).
79. 495 U.S. at 602. § 2710(a)(3). The VPPA prohibits "videotape service providers" from knowingly disclosing personal information, such as the titles of items rented or purchased, without the individual's written consent. It defines "videotape service providers" in a technologically neutral fashion to permit the law to be extended to DVDs. 495 U.S. at 602. § 2710(a)(4).
80. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, 15 U.S.C. § 6809(4)(A) (2006).
81. During GLBA rulemaking proceedings, financial regulatory agencies "wrestled with the concept of nonpublic personal information" before ultimately focusing their concept of "nonpublic" on whether personal information was "publicly available. " Charles M. Horn, Financial Services Privacy at the Start of the 21st Century: A Conceptual Perspective, 5 N.C. Banking Inst. 89, 107-08 (2001). In this context, Horn adds, "publicly available" information includes "any information that a financial institution has a 'reasonable basis' to believe is lawfully available to the general public from federal, state or local governmental records, widely distributed media (including the Internet), or disclosures to the general public required to be made by federal, state or local law. " 495 U.S. at 107.
82. Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, 47 U.S.C. § 551(a)(2)(A) (2006).
83. 495 U.S. at 602.
84. The number of Comcast customers in Virginia who subscribe to HBO is an example of aggregate data under the Cable Act.
85. 201 Mass. Code Regs. § 17.00 (2010).
86. Cal. Civ. Code § 1747 (2009).
87. 15 U.S.C. § 6501 (2006).
88. E.g., 201 Mass. Code Regs. § 17.04.
89. 495 U.S. at 602. § 17.02.
90. Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971, Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08 (2009). Note that the Act uses the term "personal identification information. " This language reinforces our earlier point that there is no standard nomenclature for PII. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 62-63 and accompanying text.
91. Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08(a)(1).
92. 495 U.S. at 602. § 1747.08(b).
93. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506 (2006).
94. 495 U.S. at 602. § 6501(8)(A)-(E).
95. 495 U.S. at 602. § 6501(8)(F).
96. 16 C.F.R. § 312.2 (2011).
97. 495 U.S. at 602.
98. 201 Mass. Code Regs. § 17.02 (2010).
99. See infra Part II (arguing that the distinction between PII and non-PII changes with context, technology, and availability of apparently anonymous data).
100. Trial Order, Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., No. 37-2008-00086061-CU-BTCTL, 2008 WL 7414542 (Cal. App. Dep't Super. Ct. Oct. 29, 2008).
101. Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., 100 Cal. Rptr. 3d 458 (Cal. Ct. App. 2009), rev'd, 246 P.3d 612 (Cal. 2011).
102. Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., 246 P.3d 612 (Cal. 2011).
103. Pineda, 100 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 460.
104. 495 U.S. at 602.
105. 495 U.S. at 602.
106. Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08(b) (2009).
107. Pineda, 100 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 461.
108. 495 U.S. at 602. (quoting Party City Corp. v. Superior Court, 86 Cal. Rptr. 3d 721, 738 (Ct. App. 2008).
109. Pineda, 100 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 461 (citing Party City, 86 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 736).
110. 495 U.S. at 602. As the appellate court declared, the statute defined PII as data that were "specific in nature regarding an individual, rather than a group identifier such as a zip code. " 495 U.S. at 602. (quoting Party City, 86 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 738).
111. Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., 246 P.3d at 616, 619-20 (quoting Cal. Civ. Code § 1747.08(b).
112. 495 U.S. at 602.
113. 495 U.S. at 615.
114. Nijhawan v. Holder, 129 S. Ct. Such searches were run through "databases that contain millions of names, e-mail addresses, residential telephone numbers and residential addresses.... " Pineda, 100 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 460.
115. Pineda, 246 P.3d at 615.
116. 15 U.S.C. § 6501(8)(F) (2006).
117. 16 C.F.R. § 312.2 (2011).
118. 15 U.S.C. § 6501(8)(F).
119. See infra Part IV.C. I (arguing that a cookie used only to send targeted ads would not fall within the FTC's definition of PII).
120. See 15 U.S.C. § 6501(8) (defining "personal information" and giving a representative list of types of information that fall within that category).
121. 495 U.S. at 602. § 6501(8)(F).
122. See Ira Rubinstein, Privacy and Regulatory Innovation: Moving Behind Voluntary Codes (NYU Sch. of Law, Pub. Law Research Paper No. 10-16, 2011), http://www. is-journal.org/hotworks/rubinstein.php (last visited Oct. 31, 2011) (describing shortcomings in the FTC's approach to monitoring online profiling).
123. 495 U.S. at 602.
124. See Ohm, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1742 (positing that PII is an "ever-expanding category" that "will never stop growing until it includes everything").
125. See §§ 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II), 1227(a)(2)(B)(i)-45 and accompanying text.
126. Gary Bahadur et al., Privacy Defended 192 (2002).
127. 495 U.S. at 194.
128. Aaron Smith, Pew Internet & Am. Live Project, Home Broadband 2010, at 6 (Aug. 11, 2010), http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Home-Broadband-2010.aspx.
129. Bahadur et al., Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 194.
130. For this reason, the Electronic Frontier Foundation finds the concern about linking a person to her searches lessened in cases where the ISP assigns dynamic IP addresses. Six Tips To Protect Your Search Privacy, Elec. Frontier Found. (Sept. 2006), https://www.eff.org/wp/six-tips-protect-your-search-privacy.
131. John B. Horrigan, Home Broadband 2008, Pew Internet & Am. Life Project 2 (Jul. 2, 2008), http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/Home-Broadband-2008.aspx.
132. Bahadur et al., Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 194.
133. For a selection of these websites, see IP-Lookup, http://ip-lookup.net/(last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
134. Network-Tools. com, http://network-tools.com/(last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
135. IP Lookup, WhatIsMyIPAddress. com, http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup (last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
136. For a website offering this information, see IP Lookup, WhatIsMyIPAddress. com, http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup (last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
137. For examples of companies successfully making this argument in litigation, see Klimas v. Comcast Cable Commc'ns, Inc., 465 F.3d 271, 276 n.2 (6th Cir. 2006).
138. Johnson v. Microsoft Corp., No. C06-0900RAJ, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58174, at *13 (W.D. Wash. June 23, 2009).
139. Columbia Pictures Indus. v. Bunnell, No. CV 06-1093 FMCJCX, 2007 WL 2080419, at *3 n.10 (C.D. Cal. May 29, 2007).
140. Cf. Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., 100 Cal. Rptr. 3d 458, 461 (discussing the potential for zip codes to be PII).
141. John Seigenthaler, A False Wikipedia "Biography, " USA Today, Nov. 30, 2005, at A11.
142. Katharine Q. Seelye, A Little Sleuthing Unmasks Writer of Wikipedia Prank, N.Y. Times, Dec. 11, 2005, at 1.51.
143. Seigenthaler, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at A11. BellSouth, the ISP for the account, refused to reveal the account information of the account holder without a court order, and Seigenthaler declined to file a so-called "John Doe" lawsuit to unmask the identity of that person. 495 U.S. at 602.
144. Seelye, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev.
145. For a discussion of John Doe suits, see Patrick Fogarty, Major Record Labels and the RIAA, 9 Hous. Bus. & Tax L.J. 140, 156-58 (2009) (explaining how John Doe suits, which are usually granted ex parte, permit the RIAA to discover the identities of ISP customers) and Julie E. Cohen, Pervasively Distributed Copyright Enforcement, 95 Geo. L.J. 1, 16-17 (2006) (describing how identified John Doe defendants usually settle outside of court and for "relatively small monetary settlement[s]").
146. Cohen, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 16-17.
147. Fogarty, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 156-57.
148. Paul Roberts, RIAA Sues 532 'John Does,' PCWorld (Jan. 21, 2004), available at http://www.pcworld.com/article/114387/riaa_sues_532_john_does.html.
149. Casey J. Dickinson, Movie Industry Seeks Cornell Pirate, 19 Bus. J. Cent. N.Y., Dec. 9, 2005, at 1. As Cohen notes: "Most defendants quickly settle for an amount reported to be in the $3000-$6000 range. Because these lawsuits typically have low filing and overhead costs, the civil settlement program has become a profit center for the industry. " Cohen, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 17.
150. Bradley Malin, Latanya Sweeney & Elaine Newton, Trail Re-identification 1 (Carnegie Mellon Univ., Sch. of Computer Sci., Data Privacy Lab., Tech. Report No. LIDAP-WP12), available at http://dataprivacylab.org/dataprivacy/projects/trails/index3.html.
151. 495 U.S. at 2.
152. 495 U.S. at 602.
153. 495 U.S. at 602.
154. Michael Barbaro & Tom Zeller, Jr., A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749, N.Y. Times, Aug. 9, 2006, at A1.
155. 495 U.S. at 602.
156. 495 U.S. at 602.
157. Anick Jesdanun, AOL: Breach of Privacy Was a Mistake, Wash. Post (Aug. 7, 2006), http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/07/AR2006080700790. html.
158. Latanya Sweeney, Simple Demographics Often Identify People Uniquely 1 (Carnegie Mellon Univ., Sch. of Computer Sci., Data Privacy Lab., Working Paper No. 3, 2000).
159. Latanya Sweeney, Maintaining Patient Confidentiality When Sharing Medical Data Requires a Symbiotic Relationship Between Technology and Policy 5 (Artificial Intelligence Lab., Mass. Inst. of Tech., Working Paper No. AIWP-WP344, 1997), available at http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/projects/law/aiwp.pdf.
160. Erik Larson, The Naked Consumer: How our Private Lives Become PUBLIC Commodities 41, 52 (1992).
161. 495 U.S. at 218-19.
162. See Daniel J. Solove, Understanding Privacy 117-21 (2008) (explaining the mechanics of aggregation).
163. Malin, Sweeney & Newton, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 2.
164. 495 U.S. at 602.
165. Arvind Narayanan & Vitaly Shmatikov, Robust De-Anonymization of Large Sparse Datasets (2008 IEEE Symp. on Sec. and Privacy 111, Feb. 5, 2008), available at http://www. cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf.
166. Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com (last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
167. Narayanan & Shmatikov, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 16. The authors concede that the results did not "imply anything about the percentage of IMDb users who can be identified in the Netflix Prize dataset. " 495 U.S. at 602. For an insightful technical analysis of the limits of the Netflix study and how it is has been misunderstood, see Jane Yakowitz, Tragedy of the Data Commons, 25 Harv. J.L. & Tech., manuscript at 25-26 (forthcoming Dec. 2011-Jan. 2012).
168. 362 F.3d 923, 929 (7th Cir. 2004).
169. 495 U.S. at 925.
170. 495 U.S. at 932-33.
171. 495 U.S. at 929.
172. For an example of an earlier court that recognized these same issues, see Parkson v. Cent. DuPage Hosp., 435 N.E.2d 140, 144 (Ill. App. 1982).
173. Sweeney, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 6.
174. 495 U.S. at 1.
175. Bradley Malin & Latanya Sweeney, How (not) To Protect Genomic Data Privacy in a Distributed Network: Using Trail Re-identification To Evaluate and Design Privacy Protection Systems, 37 J. Biomed. Informatics 179, 191 (2004).
176. Ohm, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1716-31.
177. Privacy Comm'n, Technology & Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 26.
178. 495 U.S. at 602.
179. Alessandro Acquisti & Ralph Gross, Predicting Social Security Numbers from Public Data, 106 PNAS 10975 (2009).
180. 495 U.S. at 10975.
181. 495 U.S. at 602.
182. Caroline McCarthy, Facebook's Zuckerburg: "We Simply Did a Bad Job" Handling Beacon, Cnet (Dec. 5, 2007, 11:41 AM), http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9829526-36.html.
183. 495 U.S. at 602. The social networking site also structured the Beacon system such that these data were initially transmitted without a user being able to opt out of the program. 495 U.S. at 602. In 2010, a federal judge approved a $9.5 million settlement of a class action lawsuit concerning this matter. Settlement Agreement Exhibit 2 at 2, Lane v. Facebook Inc., No. 5:08-cv-03845-RS (N.D. Cal., Aug. 12, 2008).
184. Complaint ¶ 7, In re Google Inc., File No. 102-3136, 2011 WL 1321658 (F.T.C. Mar. 30, 2011).
185. 495 U.S. at 602. The program automatically shared user information even if a Gmail user selected the "Nah, go to my inbox" choice from the initial Buzz screen. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶ 8.
186. See FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 37-38 (highlighting examples of AOL's and Netflix's data collection practices to demonstrate the potential identifiability of de-identified data).
187. For a general discussion of privacy at Google and some of the international implications of its privacy policies, see John Battelle, The Search 189-210 (2005).
188. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 143-46 and accompanying text.
189. 234 F.R.D. 674 (N.D. Cal. 2006).
190. 495 U.S. at 687.
191. For the views of an NGO, see the insightful reports by Jeff Chester and Kathryn Montgomery under the sponsorship of the Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG). These include Jeff Chester et al., Alcohol Marketing in the Digital Age 2-12 (2010) (noting alcohol brands' use of digital marketing, including "interactive virtual universe[s]" and behavioral marketing, to advertise to youth).
192. Jeff Chester & KATHRYN Montgomery, Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting CHILDREN AND Youth in the Digital Age 31-36 (2007) [hereinafter Chester & Montgomery, Interactive Marketing] (discussing "behavioral profiling" as one of the ways that food and beverage advertisers reach children in "the new digital marketing landscape"). The FTC reported on behavioral marketing in depth in 2009. See Fed. TRADE Comm'n, Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (2009) [hereinafter FTC, Self-Regulatory Principles]. For an example of international attention to the topic, see Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 2/2010 on Online Behavioural Advertising, 00909/10/EN/WP 171 (June 22, 2010).
193. See Don Peppers & Martha Rogers, Enterprise One to One 30-78 (1997) (providing background on one-to-one marketing and noting that targeting customers individually can vastly improve marketing results).
194. Don Peppers & Martha Rogers, THE One to One Future 138-72 (1993) (indicating that firms that engage in one-to-one marketing will be more successful than those that engage in mass marketing).
195. Jeff Chester & Kathryn Montgomery, Interactive Food & BEVERAGE Marketing: An Update 2 (2008).
196. Joseph Turow, Niche Envy: Market Discrimination in the Digital AGE 23-24 (2006).
197. Emile Zola, Au Bonheur des Dames (Robin Buss ed. & trans., Penguin Group 2001) (1883).
198. Turow, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 180. In this same vein, Turow also writes of a "democratization of shopping. " 495 U.S. at 179.
199. For a popular account of how advertisers enlisted the aid of social scientists in the 1950s, see Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (1957). As Packard described, advertisers and other "symbol manipulators" were "sitting at the feet of psychiatrists and social scientists (particularly psychologists and sociologists) who ha[d] been hiring themselves out as 'practical'consultants or setting up their own research firms. " Nijhawan v. Holder, 129 S. Ct. at 7.
200. Miller, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 42.
201. 495 U.S. at 42-43.
202. Jeff Chester, Digital Destiny 128 (2007).
203. Emily Steel & Julia Angwin, On the Web's Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only, Wall St. J., Aug. 4, 2010, at A1.
204. see also Julia Angwin, The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets, Wall St. J., July 31, 2010, at W1 (noting that marketers have access to a consumer's favorite movies, television shows, and news preferences).
205. Jessica E. Vascellaro, Google Agonizes on Privacy as Ad World Vaults Ahead, Wall St. J., Aug. 10, 2010, at A1 (describing Google's access to a "vast trove of data, " including one user's recent purchase of a TV).
206. Vascellaro, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev.
207. Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev.
208. 495 U.S. at 602.
209. 495 U.S. at 602.
210. See Deep Packet Inspection and Privacy, Electronic Privacy INFORMATION Center, http://epic.org/privacy/dpi (last visited Oct. 31, 2011) (describing deep-packet inspection as involving inspection of the contents of data transmitted across the Internet at the "packet" level, that is, through examination of the individual packages of bytes in which all information is sent over the Internet thereby allowing the determination of all contents of unencrypted data).
211. Turow, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1-3, 8.
212. 495 U.S. at 8.
213. Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev.
214. 495 U.S. at 602.
215. 495 U.S. at 602.
216. According to one estimate, online advertising is a $23 billion a year industry. Interactive Adver. Bureau, Internet Advertising Revenue Report 3 (2009), available at http://www.iab.net/media/file/IAB_PwC_2008_full_year.pdf.
217. Thomas H. Davenport & Jeanne G. Harris, Competing on Analytics 86-91 (2007).
218. Thomas H. Davenport, Competing on Analytics, Harv. Bus. Rev., Jan. 2006, at 98, 101, 104, 106-07.
219. Davenport & Harris, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 7.
220. As Thomas Davenport and co-authors explain, "[t]he analytic process makes knowledge from data. " Thomas H. Davenport et al., Data to Knowledge to Results, Cal. Mgt. Rev., Winter 2001, at 117, 128. Corporations in the information age are drowning in data, but without drawing on the right technology, strategies, and "analytic resources, " the data will not be turned into the "sort of knowledge that can inform business decisions and create positive results. " 495 U.S. at 117-22.
221. Michael Fertig, Hire Great Guessers, Harv. Bus. Rev. Blog Network (Sept. 2, 2010, 8:30 AM), http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/09/hire_great_guessers.html.
222. E.g. Jeff Gelles, When 'Behavioral Marketing' Turns Creepy, PHILADELPHIA Inquirer: Inquiring Consumer (Feb. 21, 2011, 2:52 PM), http://www.philly.com/philly/business/When_behavioral_marketing_turns_creepy.html.
223. see also Julia Angwin & Emily Steel, Web's Hot New Commodity: Privacy, Wall St. J., Feb. 28, 2011, at A1 (indicating that individuals find targeted ads to be "spooky").
224. Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev.
225. See Joseph Turow et al., Americans Reject Tailored Advertising 3 (2009) ("[M]ost Americans (66%) do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests. ").
226. Lymari Morales, U.S. Internet Users Ready To Limit Online Tracking for Ads, Gallup (Dec. 21, 2010), http://www.gallup.com/poll/145337/Internet-Users-Ready-Limit-Online-Tracking-Ads.aspx ("Internet users are overwhelmingly negative about whether it is OK for advertisers to use their online browsing history to target ads to them....").
227. See, e.g., Angwin & Steel, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. (quoting former brand marketer who suggested that "[p]eople feel targeted online ads are 'spooky'").
228. Nicholas Carr, Tracking is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers, Wall St. J., Aug. 6, 2010, at W1 ("Personalization's evil twin is manipulation. ").
229. Some organizations offer users individual controls, such as the ability to opt out from some tracking and to set preferences about the kinds of information that are collected. Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla are among the companies offering such privacy tools. Byron Acohido, Google Chrome Will Join Other Browsers with Privacy Tools, U.S.A. Today (Jan. 26, 2011, 10:58 AM), http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2011-01-26-privacy26_ST_N.htm.
230. It is also possible to combine information that is collected offline with information collected online and use the data to tailor advertisements to specific individuals. CHESTER & Montgomery, Interactive Marketing, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 33-34. A firm distinction between online and offline marketing no longer exists. Instead, the relevant category is "digital marketing, " which occurs through multiple channels and different platforms. Nijhawan v. Holder, 129 S. Ct. at 3.
231. FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 37.
232. See Paul M. Schwartz, Property, Privacy, and Personal Data, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 2055, 2069-76 (2004) (describing a model for propertization of personal data and proposing solutions to combat the alleged market failure in the trade of personal information).
233. Pat Regnier, The ID Theft Protection Racket, Money, Sept. 2005, at 112, 116.
234. See Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 2078-81 ("Consumer ignorance leads to a data market in which one set of parties does not even know that 'negotiating' is taking place. ").
235. Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev.
236. 495 U.S. at 602.
237. Steel & Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev.
238. 495 U.S. at 602.
239. 495 U.S. at 602.
240. E.g., Steve Stecklow, On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking, Wall St. J., Sept. 17, 2010, at A1 (indicating marketers' defense that using tracking devices to collect information from children's websites does not amount to collection of PII).
241. Julia Angwin & Tom McGinty, Sites Feed Personal Details to New Tracking Industry, Wall St. J., July 30, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703977004575393173432219064.html.
242. FTC, Self-Regulatory Principles, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 31.
243. As the New York Times has reported: "The Federal Trade Commission had some sharp words for Internet advertising companies... saying that they simply are not disclosing how they collect information about users well enough. And the agency threatened that the industry had better get its act together-or else. " Saul Hansell, The F.T.C. Talks Tough on Internet Privacy, NYTimes. com (Feb. 12, 2009, 3:53 PM), http://bits.blogs.ny times.com/2009/02/12/the-ftc-talks-tough-on-internet-privacy.
244. For an overview, see Privacy and Data Security Law Deskbook 16.01 (Lisa J. Sotto ed., 2010) [hereinafter Sotto, Deskbook].
245. Solove & Schwartz, IPL, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 776-87.
246. 15 U.S.C. § 45(b) (2006).
247. For examples of enforcement actions, see Vision I Props., LLC, FTC Docket No. C-4135 (Apr. 19, 2005).
248. Bonzi Software, Inc., FTC Docket No. C-4126 (Oct. 7, 2004).
249. Gateway Learning Corp., FTC Docket No. C-4120 (Sept. 10, 2004).
250. Thus, the FTC has spoken of "long, incomprehensible privacy policies that consumers typically do not read, let alone understand. " FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at iii.
251. 495 U.S. at 26.
252. See, e.g., ACRAnet, Inc., F.T.C. File No. 092-3088 (Feb. 3, 2011) (settling FTC charges against a credit report reseller for failing to protect its internet portals and thereby furnishing credit reports to hackers, through a consent order barring the reseller from future violations).
253. Twitter, Inc., FTC File No. 092-3093 (June 24, 2010) (settling FTC charges against social networking site Twitter for consumer deception and inadequate data security measures that enabled hackers to obtain unauthorized administrative control of Twitter, including access to non-public user information and tweets that consumers had designated as private).
254. Eli Lilly & Co., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4047 (May 8, 2002) (settling FTC charges against a pharmaceutical company for unintentional release of the names and e-mail addresses of Prozac consumers through a consent order necessitating implementation of privacy and security protections and prohibiting any future false or misleading privacy statements).
255. See, e.g., United States v. Am. United Mortg. Co., No. 07C-7064 (N.D. Ill. 2007) (requiring a mortgage company to pay a $50,000 civil penalty for improper disposal of loan documents containing consumers' personal and financial information in an unsecured dumpster).
256. Superior Mortgage Corp., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4153 (Dec. 14, 2005) (settling FTC charges against a lender for failing to provide reasonable Internet security for sensitive customer data and falsely claiming that it encrypted data submitted online).
257. Sunbelt Lending Servs., Inc., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4129 (Jan. 3, 2005) (requiring a company's information security program to be certified by an FTC-chosen expert following the company's failure to implement safeguards to protect its customers' financial information and social security numbers, oversee its service providers, and supervise its loan officers working in remote offices).
258. Complaint ¶ 7, Eli Lilly & Co., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4047 (May 8, 2002).
259. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶ 3-4.
260. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶ 6.
261. 495 U.S. at 602.
262. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶ 7.
263. Decision and Order at II, Eli Lilly & Co., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4047 (May 8, 2002).
264. Complaint ¶¶ 13-14, Sears Holdings Mgmt. Corp., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4264 (Aug. 31, 2009).
265. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶ 8.
266. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶ 14.
267. Decision and Order at IA, Sears Holdings Mgmt. Corp., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4264 (Aug. 31, 2009).
268. Stipulated Final Order for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief, FTC v. EchoMetrix, Inc., No. CV10-5516 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 30, 2010).
269. Complaint for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief, FTC v. EchoMetrix, Inc., No. CV10-5516 ¶¶ 8-14 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 30, 2010).
270. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶¶ 16-18.
271. FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 69-79.
272. Angwin & McGinty, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1.
273. For a summary of the available research, see Inst. of Med., Food MARKETING TO Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? 226-318 (J. Michael McGinnis et al. eds., 2006) [hereinafter Food Marketing to Children and Youth].
274. Don Tapscott, Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation 1 (1998).
275. 495 U.S. at 2-6. Tapscott returned to this generational topic a decade later and found that among other impacts of the digital age, young people "expect speed" in all interactions, "not just in video games. " Don Tapscott, Grown Up Digital: How the NET Generation Is Changing Your World 93 (2009).
276. Chester & Montgomery, Interactive Marketing, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 13.
277. Stecklow, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1. The fifty websites most popular with minors placed 4123 pieces of tracking technologies on the newspaper's test computers, which was thirty percent higher than the fifty most popular general-audience U.S. websites. 495 U.S. at 602.
278. See Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. (detailing the precision with which individuals' preferences can be targeted using data tracking tools).
279. Stecklow, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. (indicating that such data tracking is heavily focused on children).
280. Trust for America's Health, F as in Fat: How Obesity THREATENS America's Future 7 (2011), available at http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2011/Obesity2011Report.pdf.
281. 495 U.S. at 11.
282. S.J. Olshansky et al., A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century, 352 New Eng. J. Med. 1138, 1139, 1141 (2005).
283. Inst. of Med., Preventing Childhood Obestity: Health in the Balance 5 (Jeffrey P. Koplan et al. eds., 2005). The New York Times has observed that the current public health focus appears to be shifting from the effort against tobacco to obesity. Duff Wilson, A Shift Toward Fighting Fat, N.Y. Times, July 28, 2010, at B1.
284. Food Marketing to Children and Youth, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at xiii.
285. see also Elizabeth S. Moore, It's Child's Play: Advergaming and the Online MARKETING OF Food to Children 1-2 (2006), available at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7536.pdf (discussing marketing to children).
286. Jennifer L. Harris et al., The Food Marketing Defense Model: Integrating Psychological Research To Protect Youth and Inform Public Policy, 3 Soc. Issues & Pol'Y Rev. 211, 255 (2009).
287. 495 U.S. at 224.
288. 495 U.S. at 211.
289. Chester & Montgomery, Interactive Marketing, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 13-14.
290. 495 U.S. at 61.
291. On viral marketing and other techniques, see Chester & Montgomery, Interactive Marketing, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 2 (2008). On Facebook's use of the "like" button, to allow "effective word-of-mouth marketing on a large, global scale, " see Facebook, Building Your Brand on Facebook 16-17 (2010), http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/FacebookAds/Facebook_MediaKit_2010_US.pdf. Advergaming is a form of "branded entertainment" in which a brand, such as M&M or Oscar Mayer Lunchables is placed within a digital entertainment property. Moore, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1.
292. Valerie Bauerlein, Gatorade's 'Mission': Sell More Drinks, Wall St. J., Sept. 14, 2010, at B6.
293. 495 U.S. at 602.
294. 495 U.S. at 602.
295. Harris et al., Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 245.
296. See also Inst. of Med., Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 58-61 (examining relevant information about socioeconomic and ethnic make up of high-risk groups for childhood obesity).
297. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506 (2006).
298. 495 U.S. at 602. § 6501(1).
299. 495 U.S. at 602. § 6502(b)(1)(A)(ii).
300. 495 U.S. at 602. § 6501(8)(F).
301. United States v. Playdom, Inc., No. 11-00724 (C.D. Cal. May 24, 2011).
302. United States v. Iconix Brand Grp., Inc., No. 09-8864 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 5, 2009).
303. United States v. Sony BMG Music Entm't, No. 08-10730 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 15, 2008).
304. United States v. Industrious Kid, Inc., No. 08-0639 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 6, 2008).
305. United States v. Xanga. com, Inc., No. 06-6853 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 12, 2006).
306. United States v. UMG Recordings, Inc., No. 04-1050 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 25, 2004).
307. United States v. Mrs. Fields Famous Brands, Inc., No. 2:03-205 (D. Utah Apr. 4, 2003).
308. United States v. Hershey Foods Corp., No. 4: 03-350 (M.D. Pa. Mar. 6, 2003).
309. United States v. Ohio Art Co., F.T.C. File No. 022-3028 (N.D. Ohio Apr. 22, 2002).
310. United States v. Am. Pop Corn Co., No. 02-4008 (N.D. Iowa Feb. 28, 2002).
311. United States v. Lisa Frank, Inc., No. 01-1516 (E.D. Va. Oct. 3, 2001).
312. United States v. Monarch Serv., Inc., No. 01-1165 (D. Md. Apr. 20, 2001).
313. United States v. Looksmart, Ltd., No. 01-606 (E.D. Va. Apr. 19, 2001).
314. United States v. Bigmailbox. com, Inc., No. 01-605 (E.D. Va. Apr. 19, 2001).
315. FTC v. Toysmart. com, LLC, No. 00-11341 (D. Mass. Sept. 29, 2000).
316. Bonzi Software, Inc., F.T.C. Docket No. C-4126 (Oct. 7, 2004). For a concise discussion of COPPA enforcement actions, see Solove & Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 110-11.
317. Consent Decree and Order for Civil Penalties, Injunction and Other Relief ¶ 19, United States v. Playdom, Inc., No. 11-00724 (C.D. Cal. May 24, 2011) (levying $3 million fine).
318. Complaint for Civil Penalties, Injunction and Other Relief ¶ 11, United States v. Playdom, Inc., No. 11-00724 (C.D. Cal. May 11, 2011) (describing the defendant's online activities).
319. 15 U.S.C. § 6501(1).
320. See Harris et al., Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 236-37 (indicating that social science has shown that the impact of "[m]edia, including marketing messages" is especially strong for "older children and adolescents... as they focus more on the world beyond their families and actively develop their independent identities").
321. 15 U.S.C. § 6501(2)(A). Indeed, the FTC in 2007 had already noted that children's access to the Internet was increasingly taking place on mobile devices rather than personal computers. FTC, Implementing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act 2 (2007) [hereinafter FTC, COPPA Report]. In this report, the FTC also identified challenges to COPPA in social-networking sites and the convergence of wireless and landline communications with the Internet. 495 U.S. at 25-27.
322. 15 U.S.C. § 6502(b)(1)(A) (2006). General-audience websites that have a special section for children are also subject to COPPA, as the statute explicitly applies to "that portion of a commercial website or online service that is targeted to children. " 495 U.S. at 602. § 6501(10)(A).
323. As a result of this requirement, many websites that might otherwise fall under COPPA have a simple way of avoiding its reach: using drop-down age menus, which require a user to indicate their age before being allowed access to the site. Of course, it is not especially difficult for children to determine the appropriate birthday that will allow them to access a website.
324. See supra Part I.B.3 (describing the specific-types paradigm).
325. 15 U.S.C. § 6501(8)(A)-(F).
326. 16 C.F.R. § 312.2 (2011).
327. 15 U.S.C. § 6501(8)(F).
328. 16 C.F.R. § 312.2.
329. Ohm, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1742.
330. 495 U.S. at 602.
331. SeeU.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (2006) at 1703-04 ("This Article is the first to comprehensively incorporate an important new subspecialty of computer science, reidentification science, into legal scholarship. ").
332. 495 U.S. at 1706.
333. SeeU.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (2006) at 1768 (proposing that regulators restrict data processing and collection when the costs to privacy outweigh the benefits of the information).
334. 495 U.S. at 1759.
335. SeeU.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (2006) at 1766-68 (suggesting that the size of data sets should be a regulatory consideration, and that regulation should restrict the creation and release of data sets).
336. See Inst. of Med., Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health Through Research 112 (Sharyl J. Nass et al. eds., 2009) ("[A]n increasingly large portion of health research is now information based. ").
337. 495 U.S. at 602.
338. 495 U.S. at 113.
339. 495 U.S. at 114.
340. Gina Kolata, Rare Sharing of Data Led to Results on Alzheimer's, N.Y. Times, Aug. 13, 2010, at A1. The data are posted online. Alzheimer's Disease NEUROIMAGING Initiative, http://adni.loni.ucla.edu/(last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
341. Kolata, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at A1.
342. 495 U.S. at 602.
343. Inst. of Med., Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 114. In a recent study that used database analysis, Flaura Winston and other researchers drew on "child-focused crash surveillance information" reported to the State Farm Insurance Companies in fifteen states and the District of Columbia and then shared with the Partners for Child Passenger Safety. Flaura K. Winston et al., The Danger of Premature Graduation to Seat Belts for Young Children, 105 Pediatrics 1179, 1179-80 (2000).
344. See Paul M. Schwartz & Edward J. Janger, Notification of Data Security Breaches, 105 Mich. L. Rev. 913, 918, 959-70 (2007) (arguing that effectively addressing data breaches would require a "multi-institutional, coordinated response" to mitigate harm to consumers and to improve security to prevent future breaches).
345. 495 U.S. at 962.
346. For example, ID Analytics draws on information about 2.6 million frauds and 1.4 billion consumer transactions in its national, cross-industry compilation of identity infor mation. Technology: ID Network, IDAnalytics. com, http://www.idanalytics.com/technology/index.php#id-network (last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
347. Jeremy Ginsberg et al., Detecting Influenza Epidemics Using Search Engine Query Data, 457 Nature 1012, 1014 (2009).
348. Influenza (Seasonal), Fact Sheet N>211, World Health Org. (Apr. 2009), http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs211/en/.
349. Ginsberg et al., Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1012.
350. 495 U.S. at 1014.
351. Friedrich Schiller, Wallensteins Lager, in 4 Friedrich Schiller WERKE UND Briefe, act 1, sc. 6 (von Otto Dann et al. eds., Deutscher Lassiker Verlag 2000) (1798).
352. See Paul M. Schwartz, Preemption and Privacy, 118 Yale L.J. 902, 908-16 (2009) (contrasting a European Union approach to information privacy centered on prevention of harm with the United States approach based on "regulatory parsimony, " or avoiding unnecessary regulation of information flow).
353. For a discussion of antidiscrimination law, see generally Timothy P. Glynn et al., Employment Law 515-43 (2007). Regarding civil rights and discrimination based on information about one's neighborhood, Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977 to prevent lenders from discriminatory credit practices against inhabitants of low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining. Community Reinvestment Act, Pub. L. No. 95-128, 91 Stat. 1147 (1977).
354. Whether or not the United States provides enough protections in privacy law for such information is, of course, another matter. For a discussion of the inadequacies of American privacy law, see Solove & Schwartz, IPL, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 565-72.
355. For example, the disclosure of a person's membership in an organization can limit the freedom of association of groups seeking to affect social change. See Bates v. City of Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 527 (1960) (striking down state ordinance requiring the disclosure of NAACP's members and contributors).
356. NAACP v. Alabama, 347 U.S. 449, 461-63 (1958) (finding that the Constitution, by protecting the freedom of association, prevents a state from requiring disclosure of lists of members of lawful associations absent some overriding valid interest of the state).
357. See Paul M. Schwartz, Privacy and Democracy in Cyberspace, 52 Vand. L. Rev. 1609, 1653-58 (1999) (discussing how privacy harms can undermine a Civic Republican understanding of self-determination from a lack of sufficient protections).
358. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 70-71 and accompanying text.
359. Sullivan, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 58-59 ("Standards allow the decisionmaker to take into account all relevant factors or the totality of the circumstances. ").
360. Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988, 18 U.S.C. § 2710(a)(3) (2006).
361. Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, 47 U.S.C. § 551(a)(2)(A) (2006).
362. See Sullivan, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 58 ("A legal directive is 'standard'-like when it tends to collapse decisionmaking back into the direct application of the background principle or policy to a fact situation. ").
363. Massachusetts Security Breach Law, 201 Mass. Code Regs. 17.00 (2011). For discussion of the deficiencies in the Massachusetts statute's definition of PII, see accompanying text.
364. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506 (2006). For discussion of the deficiencies in the COPPA definition of PII, see accompanying text.
365. Sullivan, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 66.
366. See Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, 16 C.F.R. § 312.1 (2011) (showing last changes from over a decade ago).
367. Louis Kaplow, Rules Versus Standards: An Economic Analysis, 42 Duke L.J. 557, 559-63 (1992).
368. 495 U.S. at 585.
369. SeeU.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (2006) at 623.
370. Sullivan, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 66.
371. 495 U.S. at 62.
372. See supra Part III.
373. See, e.g., Isaac Ehrlich & Richard A. Posner, An Economic Analysis of Legal Rulemaking, 3 J. Leg. Stud. 257, 268 (1974) (describing "the necessarily imperfect fit between the coverage of a rule and the conduct sought to be regulated").
374. Rose, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 580.
375. See supra Part I.B.3.
376. See FTC, COPPA Report, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 8 (discussing applicability of the COPPA Rule to e-mail communications).
377. Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a (2006). See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 45-47 and accompanying text (describing the approaches of federal laws and the Privacy Act specifically to PII).
378. Council Directive 95/46, on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data, art. 2(a), 1995 O.J. (L 281) 31, 38 [hereinafter E.U. Data Protection Directive]. For background on the Directive, see Paul M. Schwartz, European Data Protection Law and Restrictions on International Data Flows, 80 Iowa L. Rev. 471, 480-83 (1995).
379. Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 484.
380. E.U. Data Protection Directive, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., art. 2(a).
381. 495 U.S. at Recital 26.
382. Bundesdatenschutzgesetz [BDSG] [Federal Data Protection Act], Jan. 14, 2003, BGBl. I at 66, last amended Aug. 14, 2009, BGBl. I at 2814 (Ger.).
383. Ulrich Dammann, Kommentar zum Bundesdatenschutzgesetz § 3, marginal no. 22 (Spiros Simitis ed., 6th ed. 2006).
384. 495 U.S. at 602. § 3, marginal no. 23.
385. Ulrich Dammann, Kommentar zum Bundesdatenschutzgesetz § 2, marginal no. 25 (Spiros Simitis ed., 1st ed. 1978).
386. 495 U.S. at 602.
387. 495 U.S. at 602. § 2, marginal no. 26.
388. See Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data, OECD Doc. C(80)58 Final (Sep. 23, 1980) [hereinafter OECD Guidelines]. The OECD is a group of leading industrial countries, including the United States, and the OECD Guidelines provide a non-binding framework for member nations. For a discussion of the OECD Guidelines, see Solove & Schwartz, IPL, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 997-98.
389. OECD Guidelines, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., § 1(b).
390. 495 U.S. at 602. §§ 7-14.
391. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC Privacy Framework, at ii-9, APEC Doc. 205. SO-01.2 (2005).
392. Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, S.C. 2011, c. 5 § 3 (Can.) [hereinafter PIPEDA]. PIPEDA also regulates the use of personal information by federal organizations and data flows between Canadian provinces. 495 U.S. at 602. §§ 23(1)-23(3).
393. 495 U.S. at 602. § 2(1).
394. Barbara McIsaak, Q.C. et al., The Law of Privacy in Canada 4-7 (2011). See 1 Privacy Law in the Private Sector: An Annotation of the LEGISLATION IN Canada PIP-15 (Jeffrey A. Kaufman ed., 2007) ("It is, therefore, important to note at the outset that the definition of 'personal information' [in PIPEDA] is extremely broad. ").
395. Stephanie Perrin et al., The Personal Information Protection and ELECTRONIC Documents Act: An Annotated Guide 54 (2001) ("The definition in the Act is limitless in terms of what can be information about an identifiable individual. ").
396. George Radwanski, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Annual Report to Parliament 2001-2002, at 56 (2003). The term "identifiable" in PIPEDA has been interpreted in case law. See Gordon v. Canada (Minister of Health), 2008 F.C. 258, para. 43 (Can.) ("[D]isclosure of the province field [of a form] would substantially increase the possibility that information about an indentifiable individual... would fall into the hands of persons seeking... to identify 'particular' individuals. ").
397. Rousseau v. Wyndowe, 2008 F.C.A. 39, para. 44-45 (Can.) (holding that notes taken by a doctor in the course of filling out a form during an independent medical examination are "personal medical information, " a "subset of personal information").
398. See 495 U.S. at 602. and accompanying text (defining and describing the origins of FIPs).
399. See Fed. Trade Comm'n, Privacy Online: A Report to Congress 7-11 (providing definitions and discussions of these two core principles of information privacy law).
400. Erika McCallister et al., Nat'l Inst. of Standards and Tech., GUIDE TO Protecting the Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) 2-1 (2010).
401. U.S. Gov't Accountability Office, GAO-08-536, Privacy: ALTERNATIVES Exist for Enhancing Protection of Personally Identifiable Information 1 n.1 (2010).
402. Clay Johnson III, Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Exec. Office of the President, M-07-16, Safeguarding Against and Responding to the Breach of PERSONALLY Identifiable Information 1 n.1 (2007).
403. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 4/2007 on the Concept of Personal Data at 12, 01248/07/EN/WP 136 (June 20, 2007).
404. Dammann, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., § 2.3, ¶ 21.
405. The CIA's World Factbook provides online access to such information. Cent. Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook (last visited Oct. 31, 2011).
406. See Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 15 (discussing the need to take into account "all the means likely... to be used" by a data processor "to single out" the individual and identify them (quoting Council Directive 95/46, ¶ 26, 1995 O.J. (L 281) 31 (EC).
407. See Khaled El Emam, Heuristics for De-Identifying Data, Security & Privacy, July/Aug. 2008, at 58.
408. Khaled El Emam, Risk-Based De-Identification of Health Data, Security & Privacy, May/June 2010, at 64 [hereinafter El Emam, Risk-Based De-Identification].
409. El Emam, Risk-Based De-Identification, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 66. See also ANN Cavoukian & Khaled El Emam, Dispelling the Myths SURROUNDING De-Identification: Anonymization Remains a Strong Tool for Privacy 13 (2011) ("There are many tools available that mitigate the risk of re-identification of de-identified information. ").
410. Cynthia Dwork, A Firm Foundation for Privacy Data Analysis, 54 Commc'ns of the ACM 86, 91-94 (2011) (developing the concept of "differential privacy, " a privacy guarantee that "revolves around hiding the presence or absence of a[ny] single individual" or small group, thereby equalizing privacy risks for those included and those not included in a database).
411. See Michael Howard & Steve Lipner, The Security Development LIFECYCLE (2006) (discussing techniques for engineers to develop more secure software). Moreover, Adam Shostack and Andrew Stewart have proposed that data security experts should analyze objective information about data breaches, draw on other fields, such as economics and psychology, and use the scientific method in testing hypotheses. Adam Shostack & Andrew Stewart, The New School of Information Security 144-52 (2008).
412. Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 907.
413. On the development of privacy legislation in the United States, the classic study remains Regan, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 174-211.
414. At the Article 29 Working Party of the European Union, there recently has been openness to a concept of proportionality in the use of information privacy law. See Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 3/2010 on the Principle of Accountability at 3, 00062/10/EN/WP 173 (July 13, 2010). The question remains as to how successful this concept will be in a system that treats identified and identifiable data as equivalents.
415. Sotto, Deskbook, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 14-3.
416. Louis D. Brandeis, Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It 92 (1914).
417. Warren & Brandeis, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 193. The most famous of his opinions about privacy as a Supreme Court Justice is his dissent in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), in which he discusses the need for an expansive principle of privacy that adapts to technological innovation.
418. Brandeis, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 92.
419. 495 U.S. at 101.
420. For more on Brandeis as a progressive advocate and his belief in public advocacy and in shaping opinion, see generally Neil M. Richards, The Puzzle of Brandeis: Privacy and Speech, 63 Vand. L. Rev. 1295 (2010), which describes Brandeis's commitment to the idea that the public disclosure of wrongdoing is in the public service.
421. See Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. (discussing the market for consumer profiles of Internet users).
422. accompanying text (discussing the billon-dollar industry of behavioral marketing as practiced by popular websites).
423. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 304-07 and accompanying text.
424. See Ginsberg, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1014.
425. For a similar risk-based assessment of the threat of re-identification, see CAVOUKIAN & El Emam, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 13.
426. See Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 2077 (calling for the association of propertized personal information with non-personal metadata).
427. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 17.
428. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 1/2008 on Data Protection Issues Related to Search Engines at 8, 00737/EN/WP 148 (Apr. 4, 2008) [hereinafter Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 1/2008].
429. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 1/2008, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 8.
430. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 286-87 and accompanying text.
431. Ohm, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1742.
432. On the role of the jury in tort law as an institution for sifting and selecting the facts that matter, see Lawrence Rosen, Law as Culture 68-130 (2006).
433. For an introduction to the variable factors in concepts of reasonable and unreasonable behavior in negligence determinations, see Richard A. Epstein, CASES AND Materials on Torts 169-285 (9th ed. 2008).
434. Solove & Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 136-38. For leading data breach notification laws, see Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.82 (West 2006) and 201 Mass. Code Regs. 17.00-05 (2010).
435. See Solove & Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 136 (providing examples of various states' data breach notification statutes).
436. 495 U.S. at 602.
437. As an example of such benchmarks, see Cal. Office of Privacy Protection, Recommended Practices on Notice of Security Breaches Involving PERSONAL Information 12-13 (2009).
438. Ohm, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 1711-12. For a technical critique of ad hoc de-identification and its shortcomings, see Dwork, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 86-89.
439. For an example of the different attempts to develop strong statistically-based methods of de-identification, see Arvind Narayanan & Vitaly Shmatikov, Privacy and Security: Myths and Fallacies of "Personally Identifiable Information, " 53 Comm. ACM 24 (2010). For an argument about how policymakers and legal scholars err by ignoring the likelihood of an actual threat of re-identification of data as opposed to concentrating on "the opportunities and motivations for the hypothetical adversary, " see Yakowitz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., manuscript at 22, 35-37.
440. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 5.
441. 495 U.S. at 5.
442. 495 U.S. at 17. Regarding ISPs, the Article 29 Working Party has stated that "unless the Internet Service Provider is in a position to distinguish with absolute certainty that the data correspond to users that cannot be identified, it will have to treat all IP information as personal data to be on the safe side. " 495 U.S. at 602.
443. 495 U.S. at 4-5.
444. On the Article 29 Working Party's sweeping definition of PII in the use of Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags and highly detailed follow up requirements for Privacy Impact Assessments for all uses of RFID, see Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 9/2011 on the Revised Industry Proposal for a Privacy and Data Protection Impact Assessment Framework for RFID Applications, 00327/11/EN/WP 180 (Feb. 11, 2011).
445. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 5/2010 on the Industry Proposal for a Privacy and Data Protection Impact Assessment Framework for RFID Applications, 00066/10/EN/WP 175 (July 13, 2010).
446. Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Working Document on Data Protection Issues Related to RFID Technology, 10107/05/EN/WP 105 (Jan. 19, 2005).
447. E.U. Data Protection Directive, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. There have been complaints in the European Union that the broad definition of personal data has led to restrictive policies and procedures that have limited medical and social science research. For a recent objection along these lines in a paper that is part of the "Data Protection and the Open Society Project" in the United Kingdom, see David Erdos, Stuck in the Thicket? Social Research Under the First Data Protection Principle, 19 Int'l J.L. & Inf. Tech. 133 (2011).
448. See supra Part III (explaining how marketing firms examine online behavior patterns in order to target advertisements towards specific users).
449. See Angwin, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. (describing tracking companies' ability to create robust consumer profiles by combining information about users' activities across different websites).
450. Part II (describing how markets can combine multiples pieces of non-PII to create an identifiable profile).
451. For a discussion of the FTC's role, see FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 69-78.
452. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 239-46 and accompanying text.
453. FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 12-13.
454. See Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 907-08 (explaining that transparency to consumers is only one of a handful of different types of obligations traditionally included in FIPs).
455. FTC, Protecting Privacy, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 20.
456. The latest such draft legislation concerns an online privacy bill of rights, as of yet circulating only in draft form, that Senators John Kerry and John McCain are cosponsoring. Julia Angwin, Proposed Bill Would Put Curbs on Data Gathering, Wall St. J., Mar. 10, 2011, at B1.
457. H.R. 5777, 111th Cong. § 2(4)(A)(viii) (2010).
458. See supra Part III.
459. Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011, S. 799, 112th Cong. (2011).
460. 495 U.S. at 602. § 3(5)(A)(vii).
461. See supra Part III.A.2 (describing how many companies have avoided regulation by arguing that the information they collect does not violate privacy because it cannot be linked to an individual's name).
462. Dep't for Bus. Innovation & Skills, Better Choices: Better Deals 17-20 (2011).
463. 495 U.S. at 17.
464. Schwartz, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev., at 2076-80. The treatment of both identified and identifiable information alike will heighten consumer awareness of behavioral marketing at a critical moment. The introduction of the concept of PII 2.0 occurs at a time when consumers know little about behavioral marketing, but are also predisposed to be skeptical towards it. Regarding the Americans' skepticism toward industry practices, a 2009 survey by Joseph Turow and associates revealed that a majority of Americans do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests. Joseph Turow et al., Americans Reject Tailored Advertisement and Three Activities that Enable It, University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons, 1-4 (2009), http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/137/. The results of the Turow study suggest that greater transparency in this area will promote greater options for consumers and more informed choice.
465. Bauerlein, Straddling the Civil-Criminal Divide: A Bifurcated Approach to Understanding the Nature of Immigration Removal Proceedings, 43 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. accompanying text.
466. See Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Commc'ns of the S. Comm. on Commerce, Sci., and Transp., 105th Cong. 2 (1998) (opening statement of Sen. Conrad Burns, Chairman, Subcomm. on Commc'ns of the S. Comm. on Commerce, Sci., and Transp.) (observing that as of June 1998, eighty-nine percent of children's websites collected personal information while only ten percent of the sites provided parental control over collection and use of the information).
467. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 109-16 and accompanying text.
468. 15 U.S.C. § 6501(1) (2006).
469. 495 U.S. at 602. §§ 6501(2)(A), 6502(a)(1).
470. Chris Hoofnagle et al., How Different Are Young Adults from Older Adults when It Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes & Policies (Apr. 14, 2010), www.ftc.gov/os/comments/copparulerev2010/547597-00005-54505.pdf.
471. 495 U.S. at 15-16. Finally, Hoofnagle and his co-authors argue, "the savvy that many attribute to younger individuals about the online environment doesn't appear to translate to privacy knowledge. " 495 U.S. at 17. The survey found that higher proportions of young adults than older ones "believe incorrectly that the law protects their privacy online and offline more than it actually does. " 495 U.S. at 4.
472. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 243-45 and accompanying text.
473. Complaint for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief, FTC v. EchoMetrix, Inc., No. CV10-5516 ¶¶ 8-14 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 30, 2010).
474. 495 U.S. at 602. ¶ 12 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 30, 2010). The critical information was both buried in a Terms of Service notice and obscure in its phrasing. 495 U.S. at 602.
475. Sheryl Gay Stolberg & William Neuman, Restaurant Nutrition Draws Focus of First Lady, N.Y. Times, Feb. 7, 2011, at A11.
476. Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children (Apr. 2011), available at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2011/04/110428foodmarketproposedguide.pdf.
477. 495 U.S. at 1. As the New York Times summarized the new guidelines, "[r]egulators are asking food makers and restaurant companies to make a choice: make your products healthier or stop advertising them to youngsters. " William Neuman, U.S. Seeks New Limits on Food Ads for Children, N.Y. Times, Apr. 28, 2011, at B1. Public health advocates have also developed a sound methodology of possible regulatory approaches. In one of the most useful, that of the Berkeley Media Studies Group, policy strategies are targeted along the concepts of the "four P's": products, places, promotions, and price. Berkeley MEDIA Studies Grp., Fighting Junk Food Marketing for Kids 18 (2006).