The rich, untold origin story of the ubiquitous web cookie--what's wrong with it, why it's being retired, and how we can do better. Consent pop-ups continually ask us to download cookies to our computers, but is this all-too-familiar form of privacy protection effective? No, Meg Leta Jones explains in
The Character of Consent, rather than promote functionality, privacy, and decentralization, cookie technology has instead made the internet invasive, limited, and clunky. Good thing, then, that the cookie is set for retirement in 2024. In this eye-opening book, Jones tells the little-known story of this broken consent arrangement, tracing it back to the major transnational conflicts around digital consent over the last twenty-five years. What she finds is that the policy controversy is not, in fact, an information crisis--it's an identity crisis.
Instead of asking
how people consent, Jones asks
who exactly is consenting and
to what. Packed into those cookie pop-ups, she explains, are three distinct areas of law with three different characters who can consent. Within (mainly European) data protection law, the data subject consents. Within communication privacy law, the user consents. And within consumer protection law, the privacy consumer consents. These areas of law have very different histories, motivations, institutional structures, expertise, and strategies, so consent--and the characters who can consent--plays a unique role in those areas of law.
The Character of Consent gives each computer character its due, taking us back to their origin stories within the legal history of computing. By doing so, Jones provides alternative ways of understanding the core issues within the consent dilemma. More importantly, she offers bold new approaches to creating and adopting better tech policies in the future.
網路上無處不在的 cookie 的豐富且未被講述的起源故事——它的問題所在、為何即將退役，以及我們如何能做得更好。
同意的彈出視窗不斷要求我們將 cookies 下載到電腦上，但這種過於熟悉的隱私保護形式真的有效嗎？不，Meg Leta Jones 在《同意的特性》中解釋道，cookie 技術不僅未能促進功能性、隱私和去中心化，反而使得網路變得侵入性強、受限且笨拙。因此，cookie 預定在 2024 年退役，這是一件好事。在這本令人耳目一新的書中，Jones 講述了這一破碎的同意安排鮮為人知的故事，追溯到過去二十五年來圍繞數位同意的主要跨國衝突。她發現，這場政策爭議實際上並不是一場資訊危機，而是一場身份危機。
Jones 不再詢問人們是「如何」同意，而是問「誰」究竟在同意，以及「同意什麼」。她解釋道，這些 cookie 彈出視窗中包含了三個不同的法律領域，並且有三個不同的角色可以同意。在（主要是歐洲的）數據保護法中，數據主體同意。在通信隱私法中，使用者同意。而在消費者保護法中，隱私消費者同意。這些法律領域有著截然不同的歷史、動機、機構結構、專業知識和策略，因此同意——以及能夠同意的角色——在這些法律領域中扮演著獨特的角色。《同意的特性》給予每個電腦角色應有的重視，帶我們回到它們在計算法律歷史中的起源故事。透過這樣的方式，Jones 提供了理解同意困境核心問題的替代方法。更重要的是，她提出了創造和採納更好科技政策的勇敢新方法。
Meg Leta Jones is Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor in the Communication, Culture & Technology program at Georgetown University and the author of Ctrl+Z: The Right to Be Forgotten. She is also a core faculty member of the Science, Technology and International Affairs program in Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, a faculty affiliate with the Institute for Technology Law & Policy at Georgetown Law Center, and a faculty fellow at the Georgetown Ethics Lab.
