Privacy does not have a definite meaning; it keeps evolving with time. Privacy as a concept can be seen as freedom from society and as a part of human dignity . Privacy as a freedom from society would see the concept of privacy from an angle of being let alone and controlling in the way one would want to represent themselves in front of others. Dignity of a person attaches itself with various principles in relation to human behaviour which includes freedom to their any decisions without interference, individual autonomy and freely develop one’s personality.

The technology has advanced to a greater extent and as a result of that boundaries of privacy have become blurred. Social media being a medium to express thoughts, share photos and videos, like, comment, get daily updates, etc. has become one of the means to obtain personal information. The privacy policies of social media inform the user about the collection of personal information and sharing them with the third party entities. This makes personal information as a valuable commodity which is sold to the third party entity to enhance their economic model. This leads to invasion of information privacy of the social media users.

Thus, this paper focuses on the legal framework in the European Union and India to understand the consent mechanism and the protection accorded to personal information under them. Further the paper explores the privacy concerns on social media and their consent model. The paper attempts to bring out the concept of commodification which affects the social media users in terms of their privacy.

Keywords: Information privacy, social media, commodification, third-party entities, consent.

DOI: http://doi.one/10.1732/IJLMH.25139