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Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

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Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#91

Post by learnstats2 »

viraptor wrote: post #4

I was thinking about a related idea recently - how much is my grocery information privacy worth for me? Summed up, I'm currently saving just over 11% on all the groceries + ~7% on fuel cost by sharing that information with 5 companies. (car insurance, CC, shop card, honey, airline) I'm not attached to this, I'd rather the programs like this get destroyed. But also by stacking the offers, I believe I'm getting more va…

> Summed up, I'm currently saving just over 11% on all the groceries + ~7% on fuel cost by sharing that information with 5 companies.

I don't think this is the exchange you are making, though.

The money you save here is no different from couponing: it's a way for retailers to price differentiate and charge the other customers more.

You are being charged a fairer price (still profitable for the retailer), for actively paying attention to what's cheaper; that'll be unrelated to the price or value of your data.

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#92

Post by square_usual »

eloisant wrote: post #70
taneq wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a really evil example, consider a version of Android Auto which knows when you’re low on fuel and auctions your “nearby fuel stations” search result slots to the highest bidders, in exchange for which the bidders get notified that they can jack up their prices on you.

This is already happening. Uber is making you pay more when your phone is low on battery (because they know you don't have too much time to think about how you're getting back home). Airline companies are showing you higher prices if they believe you can afford it, from the information they're getting about you (like your user agent).

> Airline companies are showing you higher prices if they believe you can afford it, from the information they're getting about you (like your user agent).

Is there a way to game this? i.e., given a specific user agent, can I convince airlines I'm poor and get a deal on tickets?

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#93

Post by ivanche »

cblconfederate wrote: post #84
ragebol wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because privacy is a right. And being bribed into giving it up is not a solution.

happiness and safety are rights too. Some people get paid extra to give up some of their safety or happiness and we consider it the right thing to do. It's not all black and white

Hm, show me one constitution which declares "happiness" as right?

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#94

Post by krageon »

pmiller2 wrote: post #86
krageon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By selling to multiple companies is likely to devalue your information. That has been factored in to the discount pricing (in aggregate, over the entire population of people that use these discounts), because that's the point of the people who calculate this.

Sure, but it doesn't matter if you sell to 1, 2, or 5 companies: they've all priced this in to their individual models, which means you can't really get any better with any individual company by, say, giving them an exclusive license to this particular data. But, in aggregate, you can do better selling to more companies than any individual model prices in. Which means the Nash equilibrium here is, unfortunately, a ra…

You as an individual don't matter. On average people will sell to a certain amount of companies, that's what will be factored in. Perhaps you can get a slightly better deal selling to twice as many companies, though of course this gives you extra hassle as well (which has a cost). The benefits you will receive are in any case marginal, of necessity. I do not deny they can be bigger than the company's benefits in individual cases.

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#95

Post by AntiImperialist »

ragebol wrote: post #80
awinter-py wrote: post #16

Have never understood EFF's objection to 'pay for privacy' (covered in the middle of this article). Being able to pay for privacy is better than not being able to. It creates the beginning of accountability for cos and optionality for users.

Because privacy is a right. And being bribed into giving it up is not a solution.

Does the right to bear arms mean that someone should give you a gun for free?

Whether it's a right has nothing to do with whether you have to pay for it.

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#96

Post by cblconfederate »

ivanche wrote: post #93
cblconfederate wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

happiness and safety are rights too. Some people get paid extra to give up some of their safety or happiness and we consider it the right thing to do. It's not all black and white

Hm, show me one constitution which declares "happiness" as right?

the american i think

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#97

Post by teraku »

varispeed wrote: post #87
cblconfederate wrote: post #83

This is just a bunch of falsehoods > You wouldn’t place a price tag on your freedom to speak. We shouldn’t place one on our privacy, either. You do place a price tag on a lot of your freedoms, that's what your employers pay you for. And it's not like people are going to be forced to give their data, or even forced to give all of their data, it's entirely voluntary. We either put a price tag on all user-generated cont…

> or even forced to give all of their data, it's entirely voluntary. Sure you can avoid using Google and other spying companies products, but you kind of then getting yourself excluded from the society that see no problem with that. If you don't want to give your data you essentially need to stop using internet or put a lot of effort to learn how to avoid your data to be taken away from you. I agree that it should be…

Welcome to the EU. Although there is still lots of stuff going on that is 'technically' illegal

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#98

Post by cblconfederate »

varispeed wrote: post #87
cblconfederate wrote: post #83

This is just a bunch of falsehoods > You wouldn’t place a price tag on your freedom to speak. We shouldn’t place one on our privacy, either. You do place a price tag on a lot of your freedoms, that's what your employers pay you for. And it's not like people are going to be forced to give their data, or even forced to give all of their data, it's entirely voluntary. We either put a price tag on all user-generated cont…

> or even forced to give all of their data, it's entirely voluntary. Sure you can avoid using Google and other spying companies products, but you kind of then getting yourself excluded from the society that see no problem with that. If you don't want to give your data you essentially need to stop using internet or put a lot of effort to learn how to avoid your data to be taken away from you. I agree that it should be…

> but it should be illegal to run any kind of analytics that involves personal data and even

This is never going to be fully possible. Companies will just move to analyzing people's posts and communications to extract their preferences (and, predictably, they 'll stop offering encrypted messaging for this reason). Let's just admit that as long as advertising and manipulation are necessary evils, business is going to keep making money from that data

Re: Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal

#100

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pmiller2 wrote: post #89
NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #82

What about renting data? In that way, it is not once off but for instance per "query" or time, same way Amazon is "selling" us books. Those books are not quite ours, so data companies would buy are not quite theirs?

You'd need a way to disable access to your data that doesn't involve suing big companies that have lots of lawyers. And, there's no way to prevent them from copying it.

It would mean that the government / judicial system would have Very Deep Access and control over the businesses to ensure whether this data is handled properly. On a smaller scale this happens in Europe (as a whole and individual countries) with the GDPR and co; audits or complaints about data ownership, required disclosure under penalty of fines for data leaks, etc.

They can hire as many lawyers as they want but they will be punished if they're not careful with user's data.

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