Beyond Informed Consent: Consumer Data Preferences and the Case for Enforcement-Oriented Transparency

Digital markets have fundamentally altered the conditions under which consumers engage with data-driven platforms, yet regulatory frameworks, particularly in the EU, continue to rely on consent-based models that presuppose a level of technological literacy and informed agency that most users do not possess. Drawing on existing empirical evidence from five studies across the US, UK, and EU, this paper departs from the empirical argument that consumer preferences regarding personal data are highly unstable and shaped by framing and trust rather than genuine, well-formed values. Consumers systematically overestimate the privacy protections offered by paid services, accept personalization without understanding its commercial scope, and disregard privacy notices regardless of their clarity. This argument exposes the structural failure of transparency-as-disclosure as a regulatory strategy: informing consumers better does not fix markets distorted by asymmetric information and complex, layered business models. Rather than doubling down on consumer-facing transparency obligations, this paper proposes a shift toward enforcement-oriented business-model transparency, under which platforms would be required to disclose aspects such as data flows, monetization strategies, but also algorithmic processes to regulatory authorities and civil society. The Digital Services Act and the General Data Protection Regulation already point somewhat in this direction. Building on this logic, the paper proposes further machine-readable transparency as a complement to existing information obligations.