Today and tomorrow I’m participating in a workshop on consumer protection at the George Mason Law & Economics Center (LEC). The line up includes some interesting speakers, including Howard Beales, James Cooper, and TOTM co-blogger Paul Rubin.
The workshop is part of a Privacy Fellows program the LEC is organizing this year, involving scholars from a range of disciplines, to stimulate research related to issues of data privacy and the regulation of data collection and use. This is an area in which there is relatively little work.
And in other “consumer protection” news, Michigan’s governor opted to bow to the traditional auto industry cronies and signed anti-Tesla legislation into law. One could say it’s just one more step in a decades-long string of anti-consumer protections of a politically powerful industry.
Crony capitalism wins again; consumers and innovators be damned.