This past month, Associate Professor Amanda Parsons was awarded the Reidenberg-Kerr Award for Outstanding Scholarship by a Junior Scholar at the Privacy Law Scholars Conference (PLSC).听
Parson鈥檚 research, titled 鈥淰aluing Social Data,鈥� was coauthored with Salome Viljoen of University of Michigan Law. The project explores the role of social data in the modern economy. Social data is data that stores traces of human activity as well as data that is used to infer or predict human activity.听听
Social data produces value from its capacity to apprehend, prediction, and potentially modify social behavior. This 鈥減rediction value鈥� is a value form that is distinct from and does not always transform neatly into monetary exchange value (i.e. price). For example, prediction value stemming from social data gathered by companies could be used for purposes as diverse as facilitating targeted advertising, improving products and services, and building up a company鈥檚 economic and political power.听听
Unfortunately, various legal regimes have yet to recognize prediction value as a new and distinct value form and, as a result, are not effectively governing this increasingly important mode of production in the modern economy.听听
鈥淸In the paper], we argue that prediction value is yielding distinct challenges for different camps of legal scholarship,鈥� Parsons said. 鈥淭he first camp is fields like tax law that view themselves as engaged in the business of regulating value creation, but are not recognizing that prediction value as a new and unique value form. The second camp is fields like privacy law that have never viewed themselves as engaged in the business of regulating value creation but now are. We go through specific examples of how the failure to recognize and understand prediction value is causing legal and regulatory failures in each of these two 鈥渃amps.鈥濃�澨�
Parsons focuses her research on corporate and international taxation, emphasizing the impact of digitalization on tax law. She shared that the paper came about from conversations had between Viljoen and herself during their time as Academic Fellows at Columbia University.听听
鈥�...Salome鈥檚 research focuses specifically on data governance and privacy law, while my research focuses on tax law,鈥� Parsons explained. 鈥淸During our time as fellows], we spent hours in each other鈥檚 offices talking about the data economy, how it was impacting our respective fields, and how other scholars and policymakers in our fields were responding to it. The paper is a product of those conversations.鈥澨�
听The University of Colorado Law School is grateful to have Parsons鈥� scholarship and engagement as a part of our faculty, and look forward to the continued impact her research will continue to have in the years to come. Congratulations, Professor Parsons, on this incredible achievement!听听
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