EPIC: Authorized Agents Don't Sell 'Privacy Snake Oil'

In a post Monday, EPIC Scholar in Residence Justin Sherman disagreed with a Feb. 13 op-ed on the IAPP website by Tony Ficarotta, Network Advertising Initiative general counsel.

“The op-ed nominally pointed out places where some providers could improve their offerings, yet it simultaneously painted with a broad brush implying that the industry in general misleads consumers, fails to effectively exercise consumers’ rights, and creates more privacy concerns than it addresses,” wrote Sherman. “These arguments are misleading, do not offer specific alternatives for quickly and effectively processing consumer requests, and shift the focus away from data brokers amassing people’s data without their knowledge or actual consent in the first place.”

In the IAPP op-ed, Ficarotta wrote, “the concept of authorized agents is being misused by a cottage industry of authorized agent providers that are misleading consumers, failing to effectively exercise consumers' rights and ultimately creating more privacy concerns than they address. In short, these agents are turning the legal concept of an authorized agent into privacy snake oil they can sell to consumers who are concerned about their privacy online.”

However, Sherman said that the ad tech lawyer “unbelievably and inaccurately” presents most data brokers “as privacy-respecting companies while plenty of unnamed data deletion companies, trying to help give consumers some small measure of control back over their own data, are painted as the bad guys.”

“These narratives … obscure the real privacy issues at play, set up scenarios where something like compliance with a data deletion request seems enormously difficult for a broker, and practically speaking leave consumers and their privacy in the dust,” said the EPIC scholar.