Your Data Rights · A Learn course
Everyone has that story, and nobody has been given a straight answer about it. This course is the straight answer: what companies collect about you, what they are allowed to do with it, what you can do back, and how all of that changes when you walk into work. Written for regular people, not lawyers.
On Android now, and on iPhone and iPad inside Learn AI & Product Management. The first four modules are free.
Is your phone listening? The short answer
For ads, almost certainly not. In May 2026 the FTC settled with Cox Media Group, the company that claimed its “Active Listening” heard what people said. The finding: it never listened to anyone. It was ordinary data broker lists, sold as eavesdropping.
The ad found you some other way. Your searches, the sites and apps you use, a loyalty card at the register, or somebody else on your home internet looking the thing up. Businesses can also upload their customer lists and ask a platform to find those people. That trail is more useful to an advertiser than a recording would be, and most of it is legal to collect.
Wondering whether a store can charge you more because of that same data? The price that knows your name
Why this course
It feels too big to understand, so most people don’t try
In a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, seventy-three percent of Americans said they have little or no control over what companies do with their data, and fifty-six percent said they click “agree” without reading. I don’t blame either group. The rules are spread across fifty states, a few federal agencies and the whole European Union, and nobody explains them in plain English.
I spent the last two years in law school studying exactly this: workplace privacy, cybersecurity law, AI governance, and how laws and regulations get made. The honest version of what I learned fits in a course a curious person can finish. That’s what this is.
It won’t make you a lawyer. It will let you look at a cookie banner, a smart TV setup screen, your work laptop or a chatbot and know what’s being collected, what gave them the right, and what you can do about it.
How a lesson works
Five minutes, the same beats every time
Every module also ends with a Field Card, a one-page checklist for the day it happens to you, and a Dinner Table Challenge to try on whoever you live with.
01
A scene at the house
One household, one long Tuesday. Nora mentions walking shoes at dinner and the ad finds her the next morning. Every lesson opens on a moment in that house.
02
Something to poke at
A cookie banner, a phone’s privacy settings, a smart TV’s setup screen, a terms of service you can get through in five minutes. You try it before the idea gets a name.
03
The name for it
Then it gets its name and the detail behind it, including the answer nobody wants: sometimes it’s legal. Unfair and illegal are different words, and knowing which one you’re dealing with changes what you can do.
04
A Talk Card
A quick check, back to the question you started with, then one sentence you could say out loud to someone that night.
Some of the stories
The law usually shows up about twenty years late, then hard
1987
A judge’s video rentals
During Robert Bork’s Supreme Court hearing, a reporter talked a video store into handing over the judge’s rental records and wrote about them. The list itself never ran, which isn’t how the story usually gets told. Congress was rattled enough to pass a law protecting rental records within a year, and that 1988 law is still being used today, against tracking pixels on video sites.
2016 to 2017
The apps that really did listen
Twice, apps used the microphone for ad money and got caught at it. In 2016 the FTC warned twelve developers whose apps listened for tones hidden inside TV commercials, pitched too high for anyone to hear. In 2017 the New York Times found hundreds of games doing much the same thing, working out what show was on the TV nearby. That second one asked permission first, and that is what made it legal.
2017 to 2026
The TV that watches you
You fought for the right to record TV shows in 1984 and won. Now your smart TV records what you watch and sells it. Vizio was fined for it in 2017. In 2025 Texas sued five TV makers over it, and two of them settled in 2026 by agreeing to a real consent screen.
2023
Source code into the chatbot
Samsung engineers pasted confidential code into ChatGPT to fix bugs. Three leaks in about twenty days, then a company-wide ban. This is why your annual compliance training keeps mentioning “data classification.”
2024 to 2026
Your car told your insurer
GM’s OnStar sent drivers’ braking and speeding data to data brokers, who sold it to insurers. Some premiums went up without the driver knowing why. The FTC banned it for five years, and California collected $12.75 million.
2026
The company that said it was listening
One marketing firm actually sold advertisers “Active Listening” through your phone. In May 2026 it and two other firms agreed to pay $930,000 to settle with the FTC, which found the product never listened to anyone. It was recycled data broker lists dressed up as eavesdropping.
The outline
24 modules, from “how did they know?” to a one-page plan
Each module is four lessons of about five minutes. Modules 1 to 4 are free, plus the first lessons on cookie banners and personalized prices. The rest is one unlock, paid once.
Part I
The mystery
The one question everyone has, answered properly.
- 1The ad that knew
Part II
How law works for regular people
Four tools you need before anything else makes sense: contracts, harm, statutes and regulators.
- 2“I Agree”
- 3When something is unfair
- 4Who makes the rules
Part III
What they collect
The objects in your house, one at a time.
- 5The cookie banner
- 6The file on you
- 7The settings screen, decoded
- 8The screen that watches back
- 9Your car, your speaker, your doorbell
- 10The price that knows your name
Part IV
Where you live changes your rights
The internet feels global. Your rights are local.
- 11Your four rights
- 12How Germany reaches a website in Ohio
- 13Faces, kids and health
Part V
What companies owe you
The promises companies make, and what they owe you when they break them.
- 14The privacy policy
- 15When they lose your data
- 16Why you attest every year
Part VI
At work
The place you spend most of your day, and the device you don’t own.
- 17Facebook on the work laptop
- 18Background checks and drug tests
- 19Fired for a post
- 20Your side of the deal
Part VII
AI and your data
The frontier, built on everything before it.
- 21Is ChatGPT private?
- 22Your posts, their model
- 23When it fakes you, and when it decides
Part VIII
Your move
The whole course on one page.
- 24What you can actually do
Education, not legal advice. Where the course names a remedy, it also says who to ask when you need a real lawyer.
Who’s building this
Joel Pettigrew
Product leader · Juris Master, FSU College of Law
I’ve spent twenty years building data and AI products, and I went back to school for a Juris Master at Florida State, a law degree for non-lawyers, because I wanted to understand the rules around the stuff I build. The coursework is the starting point for this. The lessons are written fresh, checked against the actual statutes and cases, and dated, because this area of law moves every few months. It’s a Pettigrew Lab project, so it’s a family one.
Read my resumeBefore you ask
Fair questions
Is my phone actually listening to me?
It can, and some apps have. In 2016 the FTC warned a dozen app makers whose apps listened in the background for tones hidden in TV commercials. In 2017 reporters found hundreds of apps using the microphone to work out what show was on. Both asked permission first, which is what made them legal. What nobody has found, after testing thousands of apps, is one quietly writing down what you say to sell you something. Module 1 covers both halves of that, then shows you the seven things that did find you.
Is this legal advice?
No. It’s education. The course explains what the law says and what your options are, and it tells you plainly when a situation is one where you should talk to a real lawyer.
Which country’s laws does it cover?
Mostly the United States, including the state-by-state patchwork, with a full section on how Europe’s GDPR reaches American companies and what rights you can borrow from it. Where you live matters, and the course says so instead of pretending there’s one answer.
Won’t this be out of date in a year?
Parts of it, yes. Privacy law changed in at least six states in 2026 alone. Every lesson that depends on a moving law is dated and tagged for a yearly update, and the ideas underneath (contracts, harm, consent, who enforces what) don’t change much at all.
Do I need any background?
No. If you’ve clicked “accept cookies,” set up a TV or used a work laptop, you have all the background the first lesson needs.
What does it cost?
The app is free to download. Modules 1 to 4 are free inside it, and so are the first lessons on cookie banners and personalized prices. The rest is a one-time unlock, the same as our other courses. No subscription, no ads, and no account, which would be a strange thing to require of a privacy course.
Does it work offline?
Yes. There’s nothing to sign into, and the lessons work in airplane mode. Your progress stays on your phone.
Is it on iPhone?
Yes. On iPhone and iPad it’s inside Learn AI & Product Management, the one app that holds all five of our courses. On Android it’s its own app on Google Play, listed as Data Rights: Micro Learning.
Start with the ad that knew
Module 1 is free, and it answers the question everybody asks first. Five minutes, then you decide whether you want the rest.