DATA PROTECTION LAWS AND THE DIGITAL ECONOMY: BALANCING PRIVACY

Every online action - a search, a purchase, a scroll - leaves behind personal data that companies now use for everything from ad targeting to loan approvals. This paper compares how the EU's GDPR, the US's patchwork of state laws (led by California's CCPA), and India's own Digital Personal Data Protection Act try to regulate that reality, and asks whether privacy laws are really at odds with economic growth. It looks at the real costs of compliance for businesses, especially smaller ones, alongside the benefits - increased consumer trust, safer data ecosystems - that these laws can create. Using India's staggered rollout of the DPDP Act as a case study, the paper argues that privacy regulation and digital economic growth aren't a zero-sum trade-off. Still, the design of these laws matters enormously in deciding who bears the cost.