The United States lacks a comprehensive legal regime for regulating data ownership or, indeed, privacy more generally, with the US Constitution throwing up conflicting signals. The Fourth Amendment may impose limits on the ability of corporations and states to invade the space of the individual, if not on single occasions, then, according to the so-called Mosaic theory, through a cumulative series of actions. According to many commentators, however, its usefulness remains uncertain and highly contingent. Meanwhile, the famous First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech (compare article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights), has recently been interpreted by the US courts to protect data-gathering and data use themselves as forms of corporate free speech.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 550