Cash, Cryptocurrencies Give Consumers Alternatives to Data Surveillance: New at Reason

Data privacy issues can be tricky for libertarians. On the one hand, the shortcomings of government intervention are significant and predictable. Regulations often fail to accomplish intended goals while empowering incumbents and burdening consumers. A “cure” should not strengthen the disease.

On the other hand, internet platforms can be really terrible. One needn’t be a commie pinko to take umbrage with invasive, misleading, or even outright fraudulent data tracking and advertising practices—to say nothing of some tech giants’ sneaky little habits of sharing data or tracking technology with governments.

We don’t need to choose between clumsy government regulations or submission to uncontrolled data harvesting. We have already had a robust market solution to marking tracking for about a decade now: Digital cash is a market escape from the financial panopticon. Andrea O’Sullivan explains.

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