Opting in, Outing out, or No Options at All: The Fight for Control of Personal Information

Businesses routinely buy and sell personal information about consumers. Many consumers find this objectionable, but relatively few of them opt out of that trade. This Article argues that businesses have both the incentive and the ability to increase consumers' transaction costs in protecting their privacy and that some marketers do in fact inflate those costs. Faced with this and other constraints, many consumers ultimately decide not to protect their privacy.

This Article proposes several ways by which consumers' transaction costs can be reduced or eliminated.