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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

#111

Post by bowaggoner »

specialist wrote: post #110
bowaggoner wrote: post #40

Very nice article! Last year I was part of a working group on a data dividend proposal for the state of California, which you can read about at https://www.datadividends.org/ . Our conclusions led us much closer to the spirit of this EFF article than the term "data dividends" might suggest. We recommended against any kind of personalized payments. We considered a small universal basic income funded by a "data tax", b…

Hi. Thanks for link. I whole heartedly support repeated radical cashectomies targeting the windfall profits of the data pirates. However... The structure of Canada's carbon dividend serves to disincentivize an undesired behavior. It's a no brainer win/win policy. I cannot see how California's data dividend does the same for our privacy. That (negative) feedback loop is missing. It's an interesting strategy. But I thi…

Great point! We ultimately felt (and this is above my paygrade) that it was outside the scope of what we were asked to explore/recommend. So we avoided suggesting taxes that drastically change corporate incentives and behavior around private data. Instead we focused on more equitably distributing the value that's currently generated from data.

We did discuss this and felt that a very deep dive would be needed. (A) It's not an objective no-brainer exactly what behavior you want to disincentivize. (B) The economic impacts/consequences could be huge, so the tradeoff needs to be carefully considered.

One example is Google Maps. Right now it has privacy drawbacks, but it also generates a lot of utility for a lot of people and is relatively freely accessible for individuals. You'd want to be careful about screwing that up. For example, incentivizing Google to switch to a paid access model.

I guess part of what this EFF article is saying is: these decisions are better treated as part of privacy law / human rights, rather than economics...I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!

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

#112

Post by specialist »

bowaggoner wrote: post #111
specialist wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. Thanks for link. I whole heartedly support repeated radical cashectomies targeting the windfall profits of the data pirates. However... The structure of Canada's carbon dividend serves to disincentivize an undesired behavior. It's a no brainer win/win policy. I cannot see how California's data dividend does the same for our privacy. That (negative) feedback loop is missing. It's an interesting strategy. But I thi…

Great point! We ultimately felt (and this is above my paygrade) that it was outside the scope of what we were asked to explore/recommend. So we avoided suggesting taxes that drastically change corporate incentives and behavior around private data. Instead we focused on more equitably distributing the value that's currently generated from data. We did discuss this and felt that a very deep dive would be needed. (A) It…

"You'd want to be careful about screwing that up."

Google will some how manage.

Government's job is to define the rules of the game, make things predictable. There's no need to second guess yourself by anticipating how the belligerents, err, players will react, and preemptively conceding the initiative.

You act. They react. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I understand the realpolitik, constraints, bargaining.

I'm just encouraging you to become clear about what you want, ultimately. Then find a path to get there.

Some day you'll have an opportunity to do great things. Are you ready? What will you do?

That's how the other side works. They spend $100m annually war gaming and coming up with plans. Then when the next inevitable crisis hits, they rush the field.

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

#113

Post by mewpmewp2 »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #90
eloisant wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Disgusting

Except this same thing has been happening in all of history. Salesmen asking different prices from different people through negotiations. I don't see it being necessarily a bad thing.

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

#114

Post by varispeed »

teraku wrote: post #97
varispeed wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Unfortunately that regulation does not work well in practice. For example, I sent a request to Instagram for them to explain what they did with my personal data under GDPR. They sent me back a canned response and when I complained that the response does not answer my questions, they sent another canned response and from there they just completely ignore my emails. Now I understand the next step is to make a complaint to appropriate government body, but I fear if I do that my accounts will be deleted. That would be okay, but a lot of my family uses websites owned by Facebook and it means I would have difficulty contacting them. I think I shouldn't be penalised for wanting to exercise my rights.

edit: The fact that Instagram can ignore GDPR requests essentially means the law is dead.

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

#115

Post by NiceWayToDoIT »

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.

Wouldn't that be the same as copying books or music, we could copyright/authorright our private data, in that way any unauthorized data copy would mean infringement and fines. Authorities would have ability to check databases.

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

#116

Post by karaterobot »

bowaggoner wrote: post #58
karaterobot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That puts the state in the position of benefiting from the sale of its citizens' private data. At that point, what incentive would CA have to oppose further encroachment on privacy?

Thanks for the reply - interesting concern. By analogy, I don't think putting taxes on cigarettes means the state will try to get more people to smoke. I also think it depends on how the money is allocated. Your concern would be strongest, I think, if the money went into some general-purpose fund. But if it funds open-source projects or a data-relations board, then I don't see much cause for concern.

I appreciate the response!

> By analogy, I don't think putting taxes on cigarettes means the state will try to get more people to smoke.

To be clear: I don't mean that the state would try to encourage companies to collect and monetize more of their users' information. What I'm suggesting is that they would have a weaker incentive to protect the privacy of their citizens if part of their revenue depended on it being infringed.

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

#117

Post by hansvm »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #90
eloisant wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Disgusting

Why? In any transaction there's a non-negative spread between how much the buyer and seller value the item being exchanged. Why is it disgusting if the seller captures that spread but not if the buyer captures it, or is there some other distinction you're drawing?

Off-topic: this same idea has been cropping up a lot on HN recently with respect to salaries when moving to lower CoL areas. The argument on one side is that their work hasn't become less useful, and on the other side we hear that with a lower CoL you need the money less, and we have a bit of a holy war going on trying to describe why one side or the other has some moral claim to the entirety of that surplus.

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

#118

Post by 542354234235 »

titzer wrote: post #23
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…

> I believe I'm getting more value here than they do. Well, these huge chains have bean counters that do exactly these kind of calculations, and in general, no. They are making more money in aggregate by doing this data collection than they are losing to discounts. Otherwise they would not do it. The real mystery is the shadow economy behind the scenes of how this data gets packaged, sold, analyzed, and monetized. Yo…

> Well, these huge chains have bean counters that do exactly these kind of calculations, and in general, no. They are making more money in aggregate

In aggregate, that might be true, but that doesn't mean it is true for you. It is like coupons. In aggregate they make more money for the company, but individually the super couponers are making more money. There are a lot of systems that understand that a small percent of users will care enough to learn how to actually maximize return, but the other 95% or users make up for it. Credit card points is another good example. All the people that carry a balance and pay interest subsidize the few people that pay theirs off every single month and use the points for "free".

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

#119

Post by 542354234235 »

pm90 wrote: post #45
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…

> But also by stacking the offers, I believe I'm getting more value here than they do. Your data is valuable not just for the immediate value that its used for (e.g. grocery stores predicting how much they need to restock of product X aggregating over consumer choices of all users). Its also useful as a data point in larger statistical analysis of an "audience" (i.e. a group of people with certain attributes) to mark…

> Its also useful as a data point in larger statistical analysis of an "audience" (i.e. a group of people with certain attributes) to marketing organizations. Every datum that they get makes their models somewhat more accurate.

Which is extremely valuable. Without them, a company can see they sell 1,000 units of product X and 500 units of product A. With these data models of individual buying behavior, they can see that 400 of the 500 buyers of product A also bought product X. So they can start marketing product A to product X buyers to boost product A, instead of just trying to market it to everyone and hoping for the best.

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

#120

Post by the_jeremy »

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).

> Uber is making you pay more

Do you have a source? 9news[0] claims otherwise.

> Airline companies are showing you higher prices

I do not find evidence of this, either[1].

[0]: https://www.9news.com/article/news/verify/verify-does-uber-c...

[1]: https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01081034/document

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