Data as the New Oil

Intellectual Property paralegal and J.D. candidate Megan Miller has published a law review note in Cybaris®, an Intellectual Property Law Review of Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

Following the European model of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the state of California implemented the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on January 1, 2020. The CCPA allows any California consumer to demand to see all of the information that a company has saved on them; consumers can also request a full list of all the third parties that their data is shared with, sold to, and for what commercial purpose. This paper reviews the implications of a new law on the disclosure of trade secrets like client lists and algorithms that manipulate consumers’ data. Ultimately, the issue comes down to which rights are more important: personal privacy or trade privacy?

Click here for a PDF of the full article.