For two decades, economic agents have been investing in the personal data-driven industry on the assumption that courts, the keepers of the legal systems, would have backed their claims, turning their technological control of personal data into legally protected property rights. Courts' backing has proved only temporary as they are now revising early solutions by constraining collection, use, and trade of personal data to protect the hierarchically superior rights. The theory of ‘legal bubbles’ rationalizes the economics underlying the legal shockwaves affecting the personal data-driven economy. ‘Legal bubbles’ tend to arise when economic agents invest in the economic exploitation of a new resource in a context of uncertainty and ignorance about the legal implications of innovative activities. These legal foundations may eventually turn out to be unstable as a result of courts' ex-post attempt to re-adapt them to the previously ignored implications of unconstrained commodification, with disruptive economic consequences.

二十年来，经济代理人一直在投资于个人数据驱动的行业，假设法院作为法律体系的维护者会支持他们的主张，将他们对个人数据的技术控制转化为受法律保护的财产权。事实证明，法院的支持只是暂时的，因为他们现在正在通过限制个人数据的收集、使用和交易来修改早期的解决方案，以保护等级较高的权利。“法律泡沫”理论使影响个人数据驱动型经济的法律冲击波背后的经济学合理化。当经济主体在不确定和不了解创新活动的法律影响的情况下投资于对新资源的经济开发时，往往会出现“法律泡沫”。事后试图使它们重新适应以前被忽视的无约束商品化的影响，从而产生破坏性的经济后果。