Title: NCTA v. FCC: do commercial free speech justifications trump consumers' personal data protection rights? Answer to shape mobile advertising industry

Authors: Evelyne Beatrix Cleff, Nancy J. King

Addresses: Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, Denmark; College of Business, Oregon State University, 200 Bexell Hall, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-2603, USA. ' College of Business, Oregon State University, 200 Bexell Hall, Corvallis, Oregon 97331–2603, USA

Abstract: A recent US federal appellate court decision paves the way for government to regulate consumer privacy protections necessary to close global regulatory gaps and support the growth of the m-advertising industry. In NCTA v. FCC, the court upheld a new federal opt-in privacy rule that requires carriers to obtain customers| advance approval before releasing their telephone record information for marketing purposes. At stake in this case was the constitutionally required balance between protecting consumers| information privacy in an era of pervasive data processing and protecting the rights of marketers to engage in protected commercial free speech that involves using customers| personal information. The decision articulates a new constitutional balance in favour of consumer data privacy protection and significantly advances the consistency of the global regulatory environment for m-advertising. However, the ruling neither makes up for a lack of generally applicable consumer data protection legislation requiring fair information practices by carriers or m-advertisers nor does the decision address important questions such as whether or not some data processing activities that impact commercial marketing practices may be so incidentally related to commercial speech protections that regulators should have more discretion to regulate the data processing to adequately protect consumer privacy.

Keywords: free speech; privacy; data protection; mobile advertising; m-advertising; NCTA; FCC; National Cable and Telecommunications Association; Federal Communications Commission; USA; United States; telephone records; marketing; data processing; global regulation; private law.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPL.2010.029601

International Journal of Private Law, 2010 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.1 - 42

Published online: 30 Nov 2009 *

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