Is Loss of Privacy the Price that Consumers Pay for Otherwise Free Online Services?

One of the consumer harms from monopoly online platforms commentators point to is the loss of privacy. That is, privacy is a dimension over which platforms complete, and lack of competition has generated low levels of privacy. However, some view serious difficulties in bringing actions when the anticompetitive effect relate to quality instead of price. Thus, some commentators have argued that loss of privacy should be thought of as a price that consumers pay for otherwise free services. Here I a