
Data Is a Toxic Asset, So Why Not Throw It Out? (2016) - Dangeranger
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_toxic_asse.html
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hasbroslasher
While I agree that there is a lot of hype around data as an asset/product, I
think the author's being a little glib about its value. Clearly, in the
current moment, targeted advertising is a huge trend, and I'm a little curious
at which point the author thinks this will settle down. In the past few years
all of the major tech giants have rode a wave of "data is power" to the top of
the market, while companies who have struggled to do so effectively have
fallen comparatively short. Targeted advertising has been shown in many
studies to be more effective than traditional marketing and as a practice it
necessitates the collection of large amounts of personal data.

And sure, there are costs to leaking personal data and then getting sued, but
a lot of companies anonymize their data as a practice AND can't really be held
accountable to consumers AND even if you do get sued, it's likely not enough
to put a company like Google or Facebook anywhere close to going out of
business.

It's reasonable to suggest that there will be some kind of government
intervention into specific practices surrounding data acquisition, but I think
a full overhaul or ban on personal data collection is unlikely: the moneyed
interests simply value this data too much to allow for (American) politicians
to disrupt its influence on their stock portfolios. Couple this with
Congress's inability to act on numerous problems it faces and the fact that
most current Congressmen and women (and their constituents) really don't
consider this a top-tier issue and you've got a whole lot of reason for things
not to change course. For data to become a real "toxic asset" there needs to
be a dramatic sea change - it's not as much of an inevitability as the author
suggests.

