Author of Industry Unbound: The Inside Story of Privacy, Data, and Corporate Power
My scholarship has appeared (or will soon appear) in many leading law journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the California Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, and the Northwestern University Law Review, among many others. My work has also been published in top peer reviewed journals, including Law & Social Inquiry, Big Data & Society, and the Journal of Business Ethics.
Won the 2024 Dukeminier Award (the M.V. Lee Badgett Prize) for my article, Disorderly Content, published in the Washington Law Review, as one of the “best law review articles concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Won the 2024 Law & Society Association Article Prize, a world-wide competitive prize that “recognizes exceptional scholarship in socio-legal studies for a journal article,” for Gender Data and the Automated Administrative State, published in the Columbia Law Review.
Won a 2024 Law & Society Program Grant ($12,000) for law & technology theory workshop.
Received two National Science Foundation grants in 2022 and 2023 ($300,000 & $500,000) for research into how privacy lawyers translate privacy laws on the books into practical advice for clients.
Named Humanities Center Fellow, Northeastern (2022-2023). Competitive, university-wide fellowship to study the role of misinformation and conceptions of expertise in the law. Given to 8 faculty members across Northeastern annually.
Won two competitive grants from the Anti-Monopoly Fund (2022) of the Economic Security Project ($30,000 and $15,000) to study misinformation in the law and to develop a new paradigm for privacy governance.
Won two competitive internal grants at Northeastern University ($50,000 each) to study social surveillance and discrimination on platforms (2021-2023).
Named Top 50 Thinker of 2020, Prospect UK Magazine.
Knight Foundation grant ($25,000) for research on misinformation (2021-2022)
Won Faculty Excellence Award, 2021, Fordham University School of Law, Fordham OutLaws.
Appointed by the Chief Judge of the State of New York to the Commission to Reimagine the Future of New York’s Courts (2020-2023)
Founded Legally Queer, an educational, activist, and advocacy project about LGBTQ legal history and the importance of a progressive judiciary (2020).
Elected to the American Law Institute on July 19, 2019.
Received grant ($10,000 annually) to fund Joel R. Reidenberg Northeast Privacy Scholars Workshop (2019-2022).
Won Best Paper Award, Privacy Law Scholars Conference, 2019 (for Privacy Law’s False Promise). Awarded to best scholarship annually. I am the only person to win twice on two single-author papers.
Only law professor awarded a Belfer Fellowship, 2019, Center for Democracy and Society, Anti-Defamation League. $50,000 nationally competitive research grant and fellowship to research technology and harassment.
Won Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award, 2019 (for Privacy As Trust). Competitive internal NYLS honor for best faculty book published in the previous year.
Won Privacy Papers for Policymakers, 2019 (for Designing Without Privacy). Awarded by the Future of Privacy Forum to 5 of the best works of scholarship in privacy worldwide annually.
Won Deirdre G. Martin Memorial Lecture on Privacy, 2018 (for Safe Social Spaces). Awarded to 1 privacy scholar worldwide annually.
Won Best LGBT+ Lawyers Under 40, 2018. Awarded to outstanding queer lawyers by the National LGBT Bar Association annually.
Won Best Paper Award, Privacy Law Scholars Conference, 2017 (for Designing Without Privacy). Awarded for best scholarship in privacy annually.
Won Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award, 2016 (for Privacy As Trust). Competitive internal NYLS honor for best faculty article.
Received New York Law Journal Rising Star Award, 2016. Competitive regional honor for lawyers with impact in the community.
Outstanding Dissertation, 2015 (for PhD dissertation).
Cihui Foundation Fellowship, 2015. Internal Columbia award for graduate research.
Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellowship, 2012-2015. Competitive Columbia Ph.D. fellowship.
John Harvard Scholar, 2003-2005. Academic excellence scholarship.
Charles Warren Center Fellow, 2004-4005. Internal fellowship for history dissertation research.
Marshall & Jacqueline Kates Scholar. 2003-2005. Academic excellence scholarship, Winthrop House, Harvard College.
Advanced Introduction to U.S. Data Privacy Law
Edward Elgar Press (2023)
Industry Unbound: The Inside Story of Privacy, Data, and Corporate Power
Cambridge University Press (2021)
*Named one of five “Best Books About Privacy,” Shepherd, by Daniel Solove, GW Law
*Favorably reviewed in Law & Society Review (2022) by Erika Douglas, Temple University
*Favorably reviewed in JOTWELL (2022) by Paul Ohm, Georgetown University
Privacy as Trust: Information Privacy for an Information Age
(Cambridge University Press 2018)
*Cited in ALI’s Principles of the Law: Data Privacy
*Winner: Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award, 2019, for Best Book by NYLS Faculty
*Finalist: PROSE Award in Anthropology, Criminology, and Sociology category
Civil Society and the Future of Privacy Law, 74 EMORY LAW JOURNAL __ (forthcoming 2025)
Legibility Double Binds, 104 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 133 (2024) (invited symposium)
Opening the Gender Box: Legibility Dilemmas and Gender Data Collection on U.S. State Government Forms, 49 LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY 1 (2024) (doi:10.1017/lsi.2023.44) (peer reviewed)
Gender Data in the Automated Administrative State, 124 COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW 1229 (2023)
*Winner of the 2024 Law & Society Association Article Prize
Introduction: Framing Regulatory Managerialism as an Object of Study and Strategic Displacement, 86 LAW & CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS i (2023) (with Julie Cohen)
*Co-Editor (with Julie Cohen) of special issue: Regulatory Managerialism and Public Governance
Americans Cannot Consent to Companies’ Use of Their Data, 17 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 4796 (2023) (peer reviewed) (with Joseph Turow, Yphtach Lelkes, and Nora Draper)
Forward: Framing Managerialism as an Object of Study and Strategic Displacement, 86 LAW & CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS __ (forthcoming 2023) (with Julie Cohen, and co-editor of special issue)
Policing Queer Sexuality, 121 MICHIGAN LAW REVIEW __ (forthcoming 2023)
Manufactured Uncertainty in Constitutional Litigation, 92 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW __ (forthcoming 2023)
Disorderly Content, 97 WASHINGTON LAW REVIEW 907 (2022)
*Winner of the 2024 Dukeminier Award (the M.V. Lee Badgett Prize)
Privacy’s Rights Trap, 117 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW ONLINE 88 (2022)
Privacy, Practice, and Performance, 110 CALIFORNIA LAW REVIEW 1221 (2022)
Governing Algorithmic Decisions: The Role of Decision Importance and Governance on Perceived Legitimacy, BIG DATA & SOCIETY (2022) (peer reviewed) (with Kirsten Martin)
Are Algorithmic Decisions Legitimate? The Effect of Process and Outcomes on Perceptions of Legitimacy of AI Decisions, JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ETHICS (2022) (peer reviewed) (with Kirsten Martin)
Social Norms and the Fourth Amendment, 120 MICHIGAN LAW REVIEW 265 (2021) (w/ Matt Tokson)
The New Privacy Law, 55 U.C. DAVIS LAW REVIEW 19 (2021)
Habit and Performative Privacy, 10 SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND REPLY COLLECTIVE 43 (2021) (invited essay)
Outsourcing Privacy Law, 96 NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW DISCOURSE 194 (2021)
Privacy Law’s False Promise, 97 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 773 (2020)
*Winner: Best Paper Award at the 2019 Privacy Law Scholars Conference
Data Protection By Design? A Critique of Article 25 of the GDPR, 53 CORNELL INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL 147 (2020)
Past the Privacy Paradox: The Importance of Privacy Changes as a Function of Control and Complexity (with James A. Mourey), 5 JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF CONSUMER RESEARCH 162 (2020) (peer reviewed)
Power, Process, and Automated Decision-Making, 88 FORDHAM LAW REVIEW 613 (2019)
Safe Social Spaces, 96 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW 1537 (2019)
Cognitive Biases, Dark Patterns, and the “Privacy Paradox”, 31 CURRENT OPINION IN PSYCHOLOGY 105 (2019) (peer reviewed)
Law, Privacy, and Online Dating: “Revenge Porn” in Gay Online Communities, 44 LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY 987 (2019) (peer reviewed)
*Honored as the Deirdre G. Martin Memorial Lecture on Privacy, University of Ottawa
*Most downloaded Law & Social Inquiry article, 2021-2022, 2022-2023
Designing Without Privacy, 55 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW 659 (2018)
*Winner of the 2019 Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award
*Winner of the Best Paper Award at the 2017 Privacy Law Scholars Conference
A Statistical Analysis of Privacy Policy Design, 93 NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW ONLINE 159 (2018)
The Marketplace of Fake News, 20 PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 845 (2018)
Are Anti-Bullying Laws Effective?, 103 CORNELL LAW REVIEW ONLINE 135 (2018)
Privacy, Notice, and Design, 21 STANFORD TECHNOLOGY LAW REVIEW 74 (2018)
A Breach of Trust: Fighting “Revenge Porn”, 102 IOWA LAW REVIEW 709 (2017)
Trust: A Model for Disclosure in Patent Law, 92 INDIANA LAW JOURNAL 557 (2017)
Triggering Tinker: Student Speech in the Age of Cyberharassment, 71 UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LAW REVIEW 427 (2017)
Privacy, Sharing, and Trust: The Facebook Study, 67 CASE WESTERN RESERVE LAW REVIEW 193 (2016)
Manipulating Trust on Facebook, 29 LOY. CONSUMER L. REV. 175 (2016)
Amplifying Abuse: The Fusion of Cyberharassment and Discrimination, BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW ANNEX (Oct. 2015)
Privacy As Trust: Sharing Personal Information in a Networked World, 69 UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LAW REVIEW 559 (2015)
*Winner of the Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award, 2016
Marriage Rights and the Good Life, 64 HASTINGS LAW JOURNAL 739 (2013)
All Those Like You: Identity, Aggression, and Student Speech, 77 MISSOURI LAW REVIEW 563 (2013)
Tormented: Anti-Gay Bullying in Schools, 84 TEMPLE LAW REVIEW 385 (2012)
Rethinking Youth Privacy (with Danielle Keats Citron): This article identifies what most privacy scholars have missed: the distinction between youth privacy and parental control. The article details the ways in which parental control takes the place of youth privacy, describes the rationales for that regime, and then critiques it. Ultimately, we provide a new model for privacy scholars that is collaborative rather than paternalistic.
Algorithmic Dead Hand: In this article, I identify the ways in which predictive algorithmic systems used to make decisions about people’s rights, benefits, opportunities, and entitlements increase the influence of the past over the present and future. I analogize to so-called “dead hand” arguments and develop a legal process for determining the legitimacy of using algorithmic systems in certain contexts.
Technology Expertise in Technology Policy: This article offers a theory of law and technology scholarship, influenced by Science and Technology Studies, that focuses on the human—rather than the technological—elements of artefacts. It explores and challenges the conventional assumption that “engineering thinking” and deep technical knowhow is necessary for regulating technology.
Industry Unbound exposes precisely how the tech industry conducts its ongoing crusade to undermine our privacy. With research based on four years of fieldwork, interviews with scores of tech employees, and reviews of internal documents outlining corporate strategies, I show that companies don’t just lobby against privacy law; they also manipulate how we think about privacy, how their employees approach their work, and how we use their data-extractive products. In contrast to those who claim that privacy law is getting stronger, I show why recent shifts in privacy law are precisely the kinds of changes that corporations want and how even those who think of themselves as privacy advocates often unwittingly facilitate corporate malfeasance.
Privacy as Trust argues that information shared in relationships of trust should be protected by law as private. This book, which is based on my dissertation in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, argues that most privacy scholarship presumes as individualistic, atomistic understanding of privacy: me against the world. Whether that’s to separate or retreat or establish one’s own autonomy, privacy has usually be conceptualized as an individual right. But privacy only makes sense as a social value; we only need privacy when others are around. Privacy As Trust relies on social theory to argue that trust—a resource of social capital—should define how courts determine whether information shared to one or a few people still remains private under the law.
