Agreeing on a Definition for Data Protection in a Globalized World

Uniform rules on data protection are not just a pipe-dream of privacy professionals. They are also more than an artificial model of legal practitioners, and more than an ideal that drives politicians who engage in discussions about a right to forget or a fundamental right to privacy. They already exist. There is a scheme for data protection in place that already affects one sixth of the world's population. The odds are that you are either one of them or know one of them. These uniform rules set out a clear picture of how data will be treated. Yet, they have neither been compiled by a congregation of government officials nor by an assembly of famous law professors. On the contrary, they have been assembled by a single player, who might not even have been interested in the freedom and privacy of the people subject to the scheme, but rather in the marketing value of their data. This player is called Facebook. The scheme is called privacy terms.