The debate over online privacy pays too little attention to the costs and benefits of the current systems of privacy protection and advertising-supported online applications. The costs of online privacy-related harm (such as identity theft) and of protective activities are small relative to the benefits from applications that are supported by online advertising, which depends on the collection of personal information. Advocates of increased privacy focus too much on increased privacy as a solution, and not enough on alternative forms of information security. Surveys show that consumers do not like targeted advertising, or the information collection that allows it, but this may be a form of rational irrationality. That is, it may not pay for consumers to understand the costs and benefits of reduced information use.
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Paul Rubin is senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. Dr. Rubin has written or edited seven books, and published over one hundred articles and chapters on economics, law, and regulation in journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Legal Studies, the Journal of Law and Economics, and the Yale Journal on Regulation. He has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other newspapers and magazines.
Dr. Rubin is also Dobbs Professor of Economics and Law at Emory University in Atlanta and editor in chief of Managerial and Decision Economics. He previously served as senior staff economist at President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, chief economist at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, director of advertising economics at the Federal Trade Commission, and vice-president of Glassman-Oliver Economic Consultants, Inc., a litigation consulting firm in Washington. He has taught economics at the University of Georgia, City University of New York, VPI, and George Washington University Law School. Dr. Rubin is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and holds a PhD from Purdue University.
