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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

#31

Post by wool_gather »

umvi wrote: post #22
BonesJustice wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First parties might compensate me by providing a service in exchange. What of the third parties with whom they share my personal data? When those parties profit off my data, what compensation do I receive?

You are not the IRS - you don't have a right to compensation every time your data changes hands, just for each unique copy. That's like me paying an author for a book, and then the author demanding I pay if I give (or sell) the book to my friend. I know what you are thinking: "but in this case copies of your data are being resold" in which case I would agree that each party has to buy their own copy from me, or, if t…

> you don't have a right to compensation every time your data changes hands, just for each unique copy

This is just a matter of law, unless there's a hidden moral assumption behind what you're saying. Your comparison to the IRS makes the point quite easy to draw: laws -- say, laws about handling of PII -- can be changed.

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

#32

Post by martinshen »

Why would they pay you for your data? How much is it worth?

If you click on 0 ads per year, you generate $0 for Facebook and therefore your data is worth $0.

For a personally targeted (using your data) ad click on FB, you're looking at ~$3.25. For a web targeted ad click on a niche website, you're probably looking $0.50-$2.50.

In other words, your "data" is worth $0.75-$2.75 per click of revenue

FB spends 17% of revenue on direct costs and another 18% on marketing. Let's ignore R&D improvements and assume 35% of costs to serve that revenue.

Profit per click for FB = $0.49-$1.79 per click.

Please consider that these clicks must have real intent behind them. In other words, there should be at least 10% chance you'd actually buy that product.

In other words, your data is not worth that much money.

...

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.?

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

#33

Post by wool_gather »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #26
jszymborski wrote: post #23

I've been thinking instead of paying individuals, gov't should levy a tax on PII that is stored. A $/person identified/fingerprinted would be interesting. This would allow ethical companies like Firefox and Signal to operate at much lower margins than Chrome and Messenger.

I like this. One worry I have with paying individuals is that it becomes predatory for poorer people. If you struggle come back-to-school season, it might be tempting to let companies vacuum up your data for a quick buck. Sundar Pichai touched on this recently, criticizing Apple for making privacy a "luxury good" (of course, Google doesn't give you privacy at any price). We should make companies value our privacy in…

> Sundar Pichai touched on this recently, criticizing Apple for making privacy a "luxury good" (of course, Google doesn't give you privacy at any price).

Heh, yes, clever spin on his part: it's expensive primarily because the default is actors (like Google) working so hard against it.

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

#34

Post by jtbayly »

martinshen wrote: post #32

Why would they pay you for your data? How much is it worth? If you click on 0 ads per year, you generate $0 for Facebook and therefore your data is worth $0. For a personally targeted (using your data) ad click on FB, you're looking at ~$3.25. For a web targeted ad click on a niche website, you're probably looking $0.50-$2.50. In other words, your "data" is worth $0.75-$2.75 per click of revenue FB spends 17% of reve…

I agree. The whole point is that they are already providing a service to you in exchange for your data—a service that is quite expensive to run. If you want to sell somebody your data, that's fine. Pick how you want to be paid. Services or cash.

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

#35

Post by atoav »

danpalmer wrote: post #3

Arguably, they already do. They pay us in services such as communications software, social software, search, etc. Also, this is very common in some countries/industries. In the U.K. if you want to buy insurance or open a bank account etc, you’ll often use a comparison website, and they will likely give you an incentive (such as free cinema tickets) for choosing a service through them. This is paid for directly by the…

Similar to the leader of a scam sect who pays you in spiritual enlightment: you might find it to be a reasonable deal, if you even recognize it as such, but ultimately it is not a solid foundation for a stable society.

The usual question arises: What would a civilized solution to the problem look like?

Edit: Having a unhinged competition where the winner is he who manipulates the masses most effectively without getting cought doesn’t seem like a good way to get to a better future to me.

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

#36

Post by rootusrootus »

martinshen wrote: post #32

Why would they pay you for your data? How much is it worth? If you click on 0 ads per year, you generate $0 for Facebook and therefore your data is worth $0. For a personally targeted (using your data) ad click on FB, you're looking at ~$3.25. For a web targeted ad click on a niche website, you're probably looking $0.50-$2.50. In other words, your "data" is worth $0.75-$2.75 per click of revenue FB spends 17% of reve…

> 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 along with exactly this business model so that we can have social networking for friends and family without the dark patterns. Needs to get everyone on board, of course, which is the hard part.

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

#38

Post by woodrowbarlow »

basicallydan wrote: post #30
umvi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not the IRS - you don't have a right to compensation every time your data changes hands, just for each unique copy. That's like me paying an author for a book, and then the author demanding I pay if I give (or sell) the book to my friend. I know what you are thinking: "but in this case copies of your data are being resold" in which case I would agree that each party has to buy their own copy from me, or, if t…

I haven't thought it through much, but on the face of it I like the idea of receiving some compensation whenever my data is _resold_, plus a way for me to see _where_ my data has been resold, maybe even a notification. It's a bit like a songwriter receiving a royalty whenever their song is played on the radio or in public (see https://www.prsformusic.com/ ). Obviously this would be a challenging thing to implement.

here's the way this generally works for music:

1. a musician joins one or more "guilds" and pays dues. there are three major musicians guilds in the US.

2. a public venue pays subscription fees to one or more guilds.

3. the venue is licensed to broadcast music by any of the guilds' members.

4. the guild divides monies from venues proportionally amongst its members, with proportions based largely on the musician's popularity.

that model wouldn't work very well for what you're imagining.

firstly, it wouldn't give you the access to information that you want about who has your data.

secondly, unlike music, user data for advertising purposes doesn't really have differences in value; to an advertiser, data about one person is just as valuable as data about another person. any differences in value have to do with the type of data rather than the source of the data.

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

#40

Post by ducktypegoose »

intopieces wrote: post #37

I’d rather be given the option to just straight up pay for a service with assurance that my personal data isn’t being used. That is what I would like to “make them” do.

I read a statistic that claimed Facebook would only need a single payment of like $4 from it's users to operate at the same margins without selling their data. Seems like presenting users with the option of paying $10 for premium privacy could end up make companies more money. I don't use FB, but I'd sure use Google products more often if the option were available. Maybe we're edge-case users, but I surely don't feel like one. That said it's confusing the options don't exist, because from a purely capitalist perspective, the only perspective these companies have, the option seems to make sense.
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