Strategic Indeterminacy and Online Privacy Policies
(Un)informed Consent and the General Data Protection Regulation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6429019 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel Green (0000-0002-4057-0660, Vienna University of Economics and Business, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 701-729 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0952-8059 • E-ISSN: 1572-8722 |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11196-024-10132-4 |
| OpenAlex | W4395663192 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 34 |
Article 12 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires data controllers to provide data subjects with any information relating to data processing operations “in a concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language.” Linguistic inclusivity of privacy policies is no longer a matter of style, but has been a binding legal requirement under the new data protection framework. Article 5 GDPR sets forth the requirements of lawfulness, fairness and transparency and prohibits any data processing operations which do not meet the standards of specification, explicitness and legitimacy of processing purposes [29]. In this study, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of linguistic indeterminacy in a corpus of 350 online privacy policies is presented and it is argued that a considerable number of data controllers continue to make use of strategic vagueness in the context of purpose limitation, therefore potentially prejudicing compliance with the GDPR. A legal-linguistic perspective on the current challenges of informed consent in European data protection law is provided. Finally, it is concluded that while the GDPR has contributed significantly to the linguistic empowerment of the data subject, the framework fails to satisfy the expectation of creating a participatory culture (see [36]) with a high degree of informational self-determination
Applied linguistics · Comparative law · Epistemology · Indeterminacy (philosophy · Information privacy · Informed consent · Internet privacy · Law and economics · Linguistics · Philosophy of law · Political science · Privacy policy · Sociology · Computer Science · Dispute Resolution and Class Actions · Freedom of Expression and Defamation · Law · Philosophy · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
An introduction to comparative law
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture
Corpus Linguistics
Text, Context, Pretext
Pragmatic Competence
Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals
How To Do Things With Words
Corpus Approaches to Language Ideology
Genre Analysis and the Identification of Textual Boundaries
Working in Digital and Smart Organizations
Assessing Annotated Corpora as Research Output
Overspecification in written instruction
Negation in Natural Language
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |