Monetary Remedies for Zero-Price Privacy Regulation: An Economic Perspective

Zero-price goods and services potentially create a problem for regulators interested in crafting monetary remedies that are deterrent, efficient, and inexpensive to implement in that they prevent the use of an easy proxy for injury or gain. Major privacy regulations in the EU and U.S. seem to have focused on deterrence, but in pursuit of cheap, have left any hope of efficiency to the discretion of the enforcers with little guidance on what that would mean. This paper examines regulatory choices