On April 27, 2020 James Cooper submitted joint testimony on the “State of Competition in the Digital Marketplace” before the US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law. Director Cooper submitted the testimony with John Yun and Joshua D. Wright.

“Conflation of antitrust and privacy policy should be avoided because the extent to which privacy serves as a dimension of competition is unclear and data collection can support higher quality products benefiting consumers.”

You can read Cooper’s testimony here.

On Monday, September 30 2019 PEP Director James Cooper spoke on a panel during the Law & Economics Center’s Symposium on the Law & Economics of Consumer Protection. Cooper sat on Panel 2 “Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission: The Economics of Privacy and Consumer Data Protection” of the Symposium. The panel included Roslyn Layton, Justin Brookman and Andrew Stivers and was moderated by Judge Maryellen Noreika.

Listen to the pilot episode of the Law & Economics Center’s podcast series, The Marketplace of Ideas, to hear the full recording of the panel.

On Friday, December 6, 2019 Professor James Cooper moderated a joint program from Law & Economics Center’s Congressional Civil Justice Academy and Program on Economics & Privacy “How Big is Too Big? Big Tech, Antitrust, and Privacy” on Capitol Hill. The panel included  John Yun, Charlotte Slaiman, and Bruce Hoffman.

Listen to episode three of the Law & Economics Center’s podcast series, The Marketplace of Ideas, to hear the full recording of the event.

Legal Careers in Privacy Law

On April 15, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School alumni discussed different paths for a legal career in privacy and data security. This live webinar was open to students only.

Featuring:

Julian Flamant, Associate, Hogan Lovells

Khoury DiPrima, Associate, Kelley Drye

Brenda Leong, Senior Counsel and Director of Artificial Intelligence and Ethics, Future of Privacy Forum

Moderator: James Cooper, Professor of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy

On Tuesday, December 3 the Program on Economics and Privacy hosted a Public Policy briefing on “Is EU Privacy Regulation Being Exported to the US?”

The EU and the US have distinct approaches to protecting consumer data, but policies like the GDPR and “The Right to Be Forgotten” do not necessarily stop at the border.  Empirical evidence suggests that EU privacy regulation has reduced investment in EU tech firms.  If EU privacy regulations affect how US companies collect and use consumer data, is there a risk that they also could export any negative economic consequences to the US?  Join us for a discussion with leading experts to explore how EU privacy regulation impacts US firms, and what lessons US policymakers should draw from the EU experience.  

On Monday, October 21, 2019 PEP Director James Cooper spoke at the Technical Policy Institute’s panel on “Techlash: Is It Real and How to Respond” at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Click here to watch the panel.

Cooper spoke alongside Bruce P. Mehlman, Randal C. Picker, Catherine Tucker, and moderator Thomas M. Lenard.

On Monday, October 7, 2019  PEP Director James Cooper spoke at a public workshop hosted by the Federal Trade Commission that discussed updating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. You can watch the full afternoon session here. Tune in at 3:30:00 to hear Director Cooper speak on Panel 4: “Uses and Misuses of Persistent Identifiers.”

Cooper spoke alongside alongside Harry Jho, Katharina Kopp, Jonathan Mayer, Kate O’Loughlin and Julia Tama on the panel. The panel was moderated by Mark Eichorn, an Assistant Director in the Division of Privacy & Identity Protection, and Laura Hosken, an Economist in the Bureau of Economics at the FTC.

Continue reading “Call for Papers: 2019 – 2020 Privacy Fellowship”

PEP marked the end of the academic year with the seventh annual Public Policy Symposium on the Law & Economics of Privacy and Data Security. Speakers included:

Continue reading “The PEP Report – June 2019”

Public demand for stronger privacy laws has reached a critical point, and congress is likely to pass sweeping, cross-technology and cross-industry privacy legislation for the first time in US history. This is an exciting juncture for information policy, but also a perilous one. Poorly constructed privacy laws can frustrate the interests of the people they are meant to protect.

In her newest white paper, PEP Director Jane Bambauer explains why an evidence-based privacy law would not look like the GDPR or the CCPA, and offers the contours (and even model language) of a statutory scheme that would better serve the modern American consumer.

You can read the full paper and model legislation here.