NON-INFORMED CONSENT CULTURES: PRIVACY POLICIES AND APP CONTRACTS ON FACEBOOK

Social networking sites collect extensive personal and sensitive user data across a wide range of services and users accept this through a click on the accept-button in their end-user license agreements (EULAs). By comparing existing regulation and discussion on future adjustments with studies of consent practices on Facebook, the article argues that with the growing importance and use of these services the consent culture of the internet has turned into a blind non-informed consent culture, heavily relying on social incentives and group dynamics in decision-making that are not adequately reflected in current and upcoming privacy regulation.