Alan M. Sears is a Researcher and Lecturer at eLaw, Center for Law and Digital Technologies, Faculty of Law, Leiden University, The Netherlands. He received a B.A. in Psychology and Business Administration from Baylor University, a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame, and an LL.M. in Law and Digital Technologies from Leiden University. Previously, he worked as a researcher with Article 19 Mexico and Central America and with Derechos Digitales in Chile, as a law clerk and researcher for Justice Madlanga of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and as a Google Policy Fellow with Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP) in Colombia. At eLaw, Alan coordinates two courses on privacy and data protection, and has given lectures in a number of other courses as well. He has conducted research as part of a team within the EU-funded e-SIDES Project, which set out to explore the ethical, social, and legal challenges surrounding privacy-preserving big data technologies. He was also a researcher in the Interaction between Legal Systems (ILS) project, investigating the legal limits of online price discrimination and personalized pricing. In addition to having researched and published in the domain of privacy and data protection online, his research interests also include freedom of expression and other issues ranging from Internet governance to intermediary liability and telecommunications regulations (particularly net neutrality and zero rating).