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Let's make them pay for using our personal data

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Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#101

Post by anyfoo »

donatj wrote: post #98
anyfoo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others explained, let's do a simple experiment instead: I see you are posting as "thorwasdfasdf". Why don't you instead not only use your real name, but also post your salary, profession, address, current and past lovers, intimate messages with them, what you like, what you don't, fights you had over electronic messaging... What's the hold up? Is it not the same as the barista at Starbucks knowing your name and what…

I think there is a huge difference between having this info publically accessible where people can judge and mock you for it, and simply having it used statistically to sell you things. I don't care what the computer thinks about me.

I don't think your statement works. First, the data is not just stored as part of a statistic. There are people who have access to the raw data (not to mention unintentional leaking). Secondly, the corporations harboring that data might not just use it to "sell you things". And then that alone would be worth a discussion, because how far is someone allowed to go to make you buy something?

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#102

Post by wmf »

behringer wrote: post #93
cameronbrown wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I'm saying we shouldn't be careful with our personal data, but: There's some serious mental gymnastics going from "young dog owners in Seattle" to selling somebody a dossier with their location, search & browsing history (all of which you can turn off).

What? You can't turn off any of that. It's recorded whether you see it or not.

Presumably when you "turn off" various Google features that data is no longer used for ad targeting. For Google to do otherwise would invite a scandal. (I wouldn't expect all copies of the data and its backups to be deleted immediately since that would be a lot of work for the tape robots.)

Check out https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/ and https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#103

Post by kzzzznot »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #71

I know this is a really unpopular opinion, but what I don't get is why all this fuss over personal data? So what if facebook records what sites you've been to? If I visit starbucks, When I go to order my latte, the owners/baristas remember my name and face and maybe even what drink I ordered - you certainly don't mind that, right? People aren't normally sensitive to these things: for example Govt on average takes 1/3…

A couple of other answers are a bit over the top, so I’ll give it a go too.

When you go to Starbucks you make an active choice to give the baristas your name (or any name) without them checking it’s actually yours.

What companies like Facebook and Google do is record your every move online with no effort or repeated decisions on your part on what to share with them. They, and whoever they sell your data to, can then build a profile around whatever aspect of your interests they choose, which will consist of associated risks and gains. That’s quite scary to me because they probably know more about some things about me than my closest friends and family do.

If someone without good intentions, someone who wants something from me, someone I’ve wronged, someone who could just gain something from me has that data they can use it to manipulate me.

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#104

Post by dilippkumar »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #71

I know this is a really unpopular opinion, but what I don't get is why all this fuss over personal data? So what if facebook records what sites you've been to? If I visit starbucks, When I go to order my latte, the owners/baristas remember my name and face and maybe even what drink I ordered - you certainly don't mind that, right? People aren't normally sensitive to these things: for example Govt on average takes 1/3…

Others have already provided good answers. I'll add my 2 cents:

Assume that the companies today are ethical with your data today - they only use algorithmic techniques to figure out what advertisements to sell to you.

What guarantee do you have that these companies will be around for the next 20 years? What guarantee do you have that somebody won't acquire these companies when their stocks are languishing - and that the new masters over this data will not abuse it?

Who owns Yahoo mail now? Who owns MySpace now? What are they doing with all that data? What incentives do they have to not abuse it?

The usefulness of your personal data has an extremely long half-life period. I'd guess it is much much larger than what the average life-span of an internet company.

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#105

Post by lucideer »

cameronbrown wrote: post #82
sp332 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does sell personal data, a little at a time. If I make an ad that targets young dog owners in Seattle, then when someone clicks that ad I know Google thinks they're a young dog owner in Seattle. Google sold me data about that person.

Not that I'm saying we shouldn't be careful with our personal data, but: There's some serious mental gymnastics going from "young dog owners in Seattle" to selling somebody a dossier with their location, search & browsing history (all of which you can turn off).

The mental gymnastics is in defining "selling data" as "selling all data Google has about you". This isn't a binary where it doesn't count if it's partial.

Google provides selective contextual data about individuals to advertisers who target those individuals in exchange for money. Those advertisers are 3rd parties. Google sells data to 3rd parties. End of.

They don't need to be handing over the full database for it to be a sale of data.

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#106

Post by anoncake »

jefftk wrote: post #83
netwanderer3 wrote: post #42

Under the spirit of capitalism, if privacy is such a popular product that so many consumers want, then why not make it available for them to purchase? For Google users example, free-tier will allow each user account 5 searches per month that will not be tracked and recorded, so essentially users will have an option to specify right before the moment of each search to indicate whether this specific search is going to…

> For Google users example, free-tier will allow each user account 5 searches per month that will not be tracked and recorded You can already open an incognito / private browsing window if you want to search without it contributing to your profile. On the other hand, modern search works better because it can build that sort of profile. (Disclosure: I work for Google, on ads. Commenting only as myself.)

> On the other hand, modern search works better because it can build that sort of profile.

Google has become too incompetent to even take the query (all of it, without ignoring half of it) into account. I don't know what Google search has become better for because it sure isn't finding things.

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#107

Post by 0xffff2 »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #80

Could we just not let anyone use our personal data? I don't need, neither do I want to lease my personal data to google or facebook. I very much want that they don't use my personal data. Note that I use neither google searcj nor facebook, but both google and facebook do collect my personal data, for example from my use of whatsapp, my Android phone and the google play store, etc. That really has to stop.

>Note that I use neither google searcj nor facebook, but both google and facebook do collect my personal data, for example from my use of whatsapp, my Android phone and the google play store, etc.

That's a non-sequitur... Whatsapp is Facebook. The Google Play Store is Google. You are using Facebook and Google 's services. Whether you're using Google search or "Facebook" (the product not the company) is irrelevant.

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#108

Post by cameronbrown »

lucideer wrote: post #105
cameronbrown wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I'm saying we shouldn't be careful with our personal data, but: There's some serious mental gymnastics going from "young dog owners in Seattle" to selling somebody a dossier with their location, search & browsing history (all of which you can turn off).

The mental gymnastics is in defining "selling data" as "selling all data Google has about you". This isn't a binary where it doesn't count if it's partial. Google provides selective contextual data about individuals to advertisers who target those individuals in exchange for money. Those advertisers are 3rd parties. Google sells data to 3rd parties. End of. They don't need to be handing over the full database for it…

Fine, how about a subset? Prove that an advertiser has seen one instance of my exact location, or an instance of my search or web history.

90% of the 'valuable contextual data' is that I searched for something related to an ad's keywords. The other ~% is targeted data. Targeting anonymised, generalised demographics/keywords which billions of people fit into does not class as selling private data.

I'm not arguing to trust Google, nor am I denying that there is massive data brokerage in the advertising industry - just that there is a big difference between targeted ads and selling data.

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#109

Post by asdff »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #71

I know this is a really unpopular opinion, but what I don't get is why all this fuss over personal data? So what if facebook records what sites you've been to? If I visit starbucks, When I go to order my latte, the owners/baristas remember my name and face and maybe even what drink I ordered - you certainly don't mind that, right? People aren't normally sensitive to these things: for example Govt on average takes 1/3…

The appropriate analogy would be like if it was a regular occurrence to have these baristas jumped after a shift and the contents of their brain and your face/late order information written down and sold to other criminals the world over.

I don't mind the big bad gobmint taking my money, I wish they'd take more to be honest. Public infrastructure needs improving and safety nets need strengthening. On the other hand, advertisers don't need my purchase history, or any information about me, and I'd rather not let them stockpile that as even if they were pure and morally righteous, they can't be trusted to make secure databases (no one can).

Re: Let's make them pay for using our personal data

#110

Post by rootusrootus »

jefftk wrote: post #81
rootusrootus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the flip side, FB should offer a paid ad-free version of their services but who honestly would pay $10/mo for FB + Instagram etc.? IIRC they don't make anywhere near $10/user/month. If you gave me the option to pay, say, $25/year for ad-free, tracking-free, and it was implemented in some way that I could trust , then I might be willing to participate with FB again. I'm hoping, actually, that someone will come al…

There's an adverse selection issue. Let's say you make $10/month/user from ads, and offer the option to pay $10/month to not have ads. Users with less money are less likely to take you up on that, and are also less valuable as an advertising audience, so you start bringing in much less per month per ads-only user. Advertising effectively allows a company to charge richer users more, which you lose when you switch to…

That is an angle I had not considered, thanks!

It seems like a chicken & egg problem, in some ways. A business that was built more traditionally than a unicorn could still make good money at $10/user/month, certainly it's possible to build Facebook-level social networking without employing nearly as many developers as they do. But without the network effect, the value is not there. I don't want to pay to be by myself.

Maybe it could work as a SaaS, selling distinct social FB-style closed social networks to families, with a future option to interconnect those.

Probably someone has already tried this and failed. I'm not an idea guy, just a coder ;-)

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