Privacy and Freedom : An Economic (Re-)Evaluation of Privacy

Departing from the almost invariably skeptical view of privacy encountered in economics, we re-evaluate privacy from the perspective of economic liberalism. We argue that the idea of freedom is fundamental to economics and that privacy can be best conceived as a specific form of freedom. Furthermore, we apply the idea that freedom, and by extension privacy, cannot be ‘self-defeating,’ in the sense that people are not free to give up either permanently. This idea, which delimits restrictions on freedom and, by implication, on privacy is translated into a criterion that rules out unacceptable restrictions on privacy