Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

Lets take the extremes as a beginning..

1. Lets assume every action a person takes is logged. That means every keystroke, cough, heartbeat, meal, path taken etc... for everyone on the planet is tracked somewhere in some system.

2. On the flip side lets say that nothing is logged and we stop using systems that track our behavior altogether.

- What are the costs and benefits to either extreme and where would the people of the future prefer to lie on that extreme? Is there a realistic middle ground?

If the question is about informed consent then I am afraid it's a losing battle. Consumers do not understand even the basic externalities of different behaviors - and even if you printed them on the label it would mostly be noise. So to expect that people will understand all possible negative externalities with sharing data is a bridge too far.

I personally think that more accurate lifestyle data, provided by users to Machine systems, with the purpose of affecting behaviors, based on stated and revealed preferences of the users would be the best long term outcome. Offloading decision making to a machine is the best decision we will ever make as a species - and that requires a lot of training data and other data to optimize.

Otherwise we might as well just go back to everyone being a farmer.

None of those licenses are for the user of the software. Some are long(-ish) because they address copyright law and are intended to be read by software authors and distributors, who presumably have the luxury of time to read and research which license they would like to use for their software or 3rd party software they want to redistribute.

> Licenses are long and complex not only because they have "bullshit" and "shady stuff" in them.

That's fine. Now find a way to explain it plainly to the user so they can make an informed decision.

> But how short and simple does a license need to be to make the average user actually read it before clicking OK?

Well, that varies, but you can be sure that anybody that clicked OK after only a few seconds did not read anything. Choosing to continue when you know the contract wasn't read is prima facie evidence that no contract was established.

However, the larger problem is you think simply presenting legalease and waiting for someone to click OK can ever meet the standard of informed consent[1], which is a much stronger requirement than the click that's required for some contracts. Contract law is sufficient for most of what's in an TOS, but data is very important and most people have a poor understanding of what is being collected and what is possible when their data is aggregated with other sources. To protect people, the higher standard of informed consent should be used before collecting any data. This would only apply to the data you want to collect, not the entire TOS.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#Valid_element...

Now, there is actually precedent for banning consenting adults from sharing private information in order to ensure the survival of the democracy that is quite common in stable democracies: You are usually not allowed to prove to third parties how you voted in an election. That's only because of the externalities that that can have on the democracy if third parties can pressure you into voting a certain way/can buy your votes.