In my first episode on the Podvocate, we took an antitrust law, an ever-growing area of the law whose primary purpose is to regulate corporate M&A activity through the use of the Clayton Act and FTC Act to protect macro-level impacts on individual consumers and consumer markets. One area of the law with a similar goal is consumer protection law; however, instead of taking a look at fraud, deception, misrepresentation, or credit disclosure laws, we are examining one of the most polarizing and emerging areas of consumer protection law in the modern era: data privacy law. This episode provides practical examples of how we interact with privacy laws day-to-day, a definition for what data privacy seeks to accomplish, information on the most seminal federal and state data privacy laws affecting data controllers, and some examples of what data privacy attorney do and what law students can do to learn more about data privacy law. Let’s explore privacy law and discover together why it is the area of the law most discussed within emerging technology.

Specific laws discussed include federal laws like HIPAA, the GLBA, CAN-SPAM, and COPPA. State laws discussed include five of the original comprehensive state data privacy laws that have made the regulation of data privacy law immensely more complicated. Information on what data privacy attorneys do have been provided by data privacy attorneys from around the country, and information regarding what law students cand to learn more stems from my personal experience navigating this emerging area of the law and other Chicago-based law students also seeking to learn more about how to grow their reputation in the privacy law landscape.