CSO interviewed Manatt's Donna Wilson, a partner in the firm's Litigation division, for an article on how companies and consumers can protect themselves from the privacy problems created by big data collection.
CSO reports that numerous companies collect and sell consumer profiles that are not clearly protected under current legal frameworks. There is also little or no accountability or even guarantees that the information is accurate.
Wilson said consumers, "need to take a strong measure of responsibility and consciously decide with whom they will share their information and for what purposes."
That, she said, means consumers need to force themselves to do what almost nobody does: Read privacy policies and terms of service agreements. "If consumers do not agree with what the business intends to collect, or how it intends to use the information, they can choose not to patronize that business," she said.