
Let's make them pay for using our personal data - Igor_Wiwi
http://amortizedcost.net/make-them-pay-for-personal-data/
======
nostrademons
Pretty sure the mechanics as detailed in the article are factually wrong.
Google does not sell personal data. It collects all the personal data it can
and then stockpiles it, where it becomes an asset that the company can use to
build products and charge rent (largely from advertisers, but also from
consumers). Selling an extremely valuable proprietary asset to competitors
would be a really dumb move - the money in today's economy is in owning
monopoly assets and charging rent for them.

The actual mechanism behind the behavior the author observed is that the user
went to Google, searched for a product, and then _visited the product 's
website_. The product's website contains a tracking beacon that associates a
unique cookie for the user with the visit. The website's owner can then choose
to run ads on Facebook or Twitter that are shown only to people who previously
visited the website. This program is well-known among Facebook advertisers
(it's apparently quite profitable to them), but Facebook understandably
doesn't publicize it much to the general public.

Agree that it'd be cool if the person involved could actually control who and
where it went to and was compensated for the use of it, but that'd likely
require a fundamental change in how the web works.

~~~
sp332
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.

~~~
cameronbrown
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).

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

~~~
wmf
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/](https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/)
and
[https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols)

------
danpalmer
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 affiliate revenue. Cashback sites also exist that do this through
affiliates. Credit cards do this with air miles, cashback and other rewards
too.

~~~
Igor_Wiwi
I bet for 90% of users of Facebook(or Google) it is not clear how actually
Facebook makes money

~~~
sbhn
Facebook sells your attention. Look at your news feed, every second post is an
ad.

~~~
munk-a
Your attention and your productivity. They are a leech on modern society.

------
thorwasdfasdf
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 of people's incomes (thousand, tens of thousands of dollars) without
the slightest hint of complaint. But when a company records where you've been
online (with 0$ cost to you) it's all the sudden a disaster?

i genuinely struggle to understand this. if someone could explain it, that
would be interesting.

~~~
titzer
I'll give it a shot. Yeah, so you don't give a crap about being tracked
everywhere, having your every inclination, desire, thought, intention, or deed
recorded. You're fine with them knowing everything about you, about your
family, friends, associates, acquaintances, and all their doings and
preferences too. But then one day you wake up and you realize that your entire
existence is being mined to corral you into corridor of sameness, conformity,
and malaise. You don't think anything edgy or dangerous, don't do anything
remotely controversial or embarrassing. They mostly track you to monetize your
sameness, your complete and utter lack of originality, your total lack of
value to them except as cattle to be fed a diet of carrots and sticks; ads and
special offers. You don't mind the digital eyes stalking you everywhere from
the shadows. You don't mind having your complete existence watched over for--
for now, seemingly innocuous if slightly annoying cajoling to buy more crap.

But you live a charmed life without imagination. Without dangerous ideas. Who
wouldn't hurt a soul. To you, your life couldn't possibly matter. To you,
you're one of the herd. You like it. Blending right in.

Enjoy your charmed life that complete and utter indifference to the digital
dystopia being erected around you, beyond your control. You probably won't do
anything edgy or interesting, because you're caught in that loop that they
love you to be in. Inured and desensitized, caught in a self-reinforcing loop
made by the background of your mind, constructed by your subconscious that
knows that you're being watched--all the time.

For your sakes I hope you never stumble on a crime, disagree with prevailing
political opinions, or speak up against the powers that be. Or that you look
like someone who might. Or are close to someone who might. Better steer clear
of sex toys, risky behavior and embarrassing maladies, live your bland
existence under the watchful eye of the overlords who seem harmless, if only a
little greedy.

Don't live your life any way that makes you unique and don't make yourself a
target! Don't bother to use your imagination! Keep your lips off that whistle!
And make sure to vote, or not, because who the fuck cares how society treats
its citizens, amirite?

And don't bother looking back to the expectation of privacy that just a
generation ago, was some kind of normal. To see the governments and power
structures that wielded tyranny over people and engaged in genocide, to the
documents and bills of rights that were put in place to restrict that tyranny,
and how thoroughly founders understood that people just have a right to be
free. But lattes!

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
I think what your saying is that facebook makes it easier for the government
to come after you, if you blow a whistle. But, if the gov came after you, i
think they'd be able to get you if they really wanted you.

And basically, that FB monitoring reduces our willingness to share who we
really are (at least the edgy non-conformist stuff)

For sex toys and other non-conformist stuff, signout of facebook and use
Google in-cognito mode. You don't want that stuff on Facebook anyways.

~~~
titzer
No, what I am saying is that we have totally normalized criminal stalking in
the digital age. If you think incognito mode is going to save you, I suggest
you dig deeper. And turn off your location history and high-accuracy mode! And
WiFi! Seriously, you should basically assume your cellphone is a surveillance
device, because it is.

------
jszymborski
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.

~~~
jakelazaroff
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 the first place, not commoditize
it.

~~~
wool_gather
> 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.

------
Communitivity
This is not a new movement, and Tim Berners-Lee's SOLID is good but not the
first attempt to address this.

The first I heard of something like this was in the Berkman Identity Group,
which grew into the Identity Commons. At the time the movement was called
Vendor-Relationship-Management (VRM), an inversion of the CRM practice where
customers controlled the information and could be incentivized in various ways
(discounts, paid, etc.) to share that information for agreed upon durations.

[https://www.idcommons.org/working-groups/vendor-
relationship...](https://www.idcommons.org/working-groups/vendor-relationship-
management/)

This movement was one of the drivers for the link contract work done as part
of the Extensible Data Interchange (XDI) OASIS technical committee.

I don't know if this is the first instance of this kind of movement, but it
was the first I heard of it.

Doc Searls reports another recent development: VRM is alive and well, under a
new acronym that plays on B2B, Me2B. Source:
[http://blogs.harvard.edu/vrm/](http://blogs.harvard.edu/vrm/)

------
ergl
I used to support this point on view, but after the Facebook VPN scandal
[0][1] I think using this approach will do more harm than good. It's a good
way to make sure only poor people lose their privacy, since those that can
afford it will use other platforms that charge a fee in exchange for a private
experience (say no ads, or better privacy defaults).

Arguably, this is already happening with Apple, positioning themselves as
privacy-aware, but charging a huge markup for it.

[0]: Facebook has been paying teens $20 a month for access to all of their
personal data [https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/1/30/18203803/facebook-
re...](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/1/30/18203803/facebook-research-vpn-
minors-data-access-apple)

[1]: Discussion on Hacker News
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055)

------
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.?

~~~
rootusrootus
> 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.

~~~
jefftk
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 a flat fee.

~~~
rootusrootus
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 ;-)

~~~
pkaye
I think app.net
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net))
tried that approach and failed to get traction.

I view it kind of like Craigslist. If I put something there for free tons of
people are interested. If I charge even a dollar the interest drops by a
magnitude.

------
oscarwroche
I think I looked that up like 4 years ago and found a few platforms where you
could resell your data - thing is it wasn't worth much, like you could make 4
bucks a month with regular smartphone usage. Even if the data we generate is
profitable it's only so when aggregated (e.g. across thousands / millions of
users) so the value of a given person's data is heavily diluted. Then again
maybe it isn't worth that much because the price is being set by the people
collecting the data and not by the users - if there is a paradigm shift in
which people become aware that they're basically working for free, maybe the
value would increase ?

(I used to work in a company that was basically harvesting some users' GPS
data (via a SDK / without their explicit consent) and using it to make
consumer studies for retail companies so it made me think)

------
Sir_Cmpwn
This page sends your data to:

\- Google

\- Disqus

\- Facebook

Maybe the author should practice what they preach.

------
munk-a
I strongly disagree in trying to actually cost out the usage of our personal
data. I think the right to privacy should be protected and that the extreme
compromise of your personal thoughts is abhorrent. A market around this data
would just lead to a normalization of this behavior into the socially
acceptable realm. Similar to how we don't allow people to sell themselves into
slavery we should prevent people from selling off their personal history.

------
ijpoijpoihpiuoh
> Do you remember when you were looking for good pair of hiking boots on
> Google and almost imminently you start seeing promoted posts about nice
> shoes discounts on Facebook and Twitter.

I don't _think_ this happens?

> Basically what happens is that Google without your (explicit) confirmation
> collects all history of you search requests and sell it to another company.

This definitely does not happen. Google doesn't sell search history to anyone
else. It may be the case that Google itself remarkets things to you. But I
don't think so, since how would they get paid in that transaction? Through
affiliate links? Doubtful.

Instead, I think what actually happens is that people make a search, they
click a link, and target of that link (be it Amazon or some other store)
associates their profile with interest in a particular product, then remarkets
to that profile on Facebook.

------
0thgen
worth noting that this is why Andrew Yang is justifying a tax-funded Universal
Basic Income proposal in the US: if corporate research makes money of
citizen's data, then citizens should be compensated accordingly.

------
Qiho
Why not sell our data and for that money buy non - free services? In that
sense we can at least control what to give and services will compete not only
for a good service but also for a good price.

------
DavideNL
That sounds like what Brave Rewards does... [https://brave.com/brave-
rewards/](https://brave.com/brave-rewards/)

------
neilv
Be careful, as you legitimize a practice that has been very secretive and
dishonest in tech, and in many cases should be considered criminal.

I suggest that we're tremendously outclassed in understanding how this all
works, and how to find angles or "evil" in it.

Also, it could be somewhat similar to what we get with class-action
settlements that are just a minor cost of doing business to let the wrongdoer
off the hook, while paying some middleperson to facilitate that.

------
intopieces
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.

~~~
ducktypegoose
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.

~~~
jefftk
_> Facebook would only need a single payment of like $4 from it's users to
operate at the same margins without selling their data_

Facebook makes about $100/year from American users. [1] Something like $4 once
can't be right.

(Facebook also doesn't sell your data. They allow people to target ads against
your data.)

[1] 2018 Q3 data, but the right range:
[https://digiday.com/marketing/facebooks-making-money-per-
use...](https://digiday.com/marketing/facebooks-making-money-per-user-north-
america-ever/)

------
YeGoblynQueenne
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.

~~~
0xffff2
>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.

------
dijksterhuis
[https://solid.inrupt.com/](https://solid.inrupt.com/)

Tim Berners Lee is already working on something similar

------
rvrabec
Start by figuring out how much YOUR data is worth - that's the hardest part of
all this. Individuals will need to create scarcity like the big ad networks do
today, otherwise a market flooded with copies of personal data will have very
little value.
[https://app.fastgarden.io/assessment](https://app.fastgarden.io/assessment)

------
jackforsight
I have said this for the longest time ECHO, GOOGLE HOME etc... DNA tests,
Ancestry et al. should pay the users and not the other way around.

------
theartfuldodger
The initial concern of "the service would have to be paid for" is
insurmountable to this generation.

If the average Grandma and High School kid had to pay per query to Google in
return for ad free search ( Google did have this product with CSE) what
miniscule percentage of users would pay?

The Brave Attention Token tackles this problem in a logical manner

------
archagon
If anyone is interested in some long-form writing, Vi Hart posted a very well-
reasoned article about the same subject (and much more besides) a few weeks
ago: [https://theartofresearch.org/ai-ubi-and-
data/](https://theartofresearch.org/ai-ubi-and-data/)

------
theincredulousk
In theory I agree, but the somewhat depressing realization is that _your_ data
is not especially valuable in and of itself. The marginal value of your data
with respect to 10,000,000 other people's data is almost (but not quite)
nothing. The value is in the whole.

It might work well if significantly large groups of people got together and
collectively sold their data - say 100,000 or more. That would be kind of cool
- "hey we are 100,000 people with X demographics and are willing to share Y
data for Z dollars.

Doing it on an individual basis may be a symbolic victory, but that would
likely be it. "Personal" data has a huge asymmetry in value. There is some
Danny Kahneman in here somewhere - I bet people would value their own data 10x
what they value a random person's at.

In my opinion people would on average refuse to sell their data individually
because what it is actually worth would almost certainly be lower (probably
much lower) than they'd imagine, and that sounds like it would make people sad
not happy.

------
buboard
The thing is, without those companies your data is absolutely worthless, users
are not holding any cards. To own your data,put it in RSS format and let
competitors bid to license them from you.

(Also author doesnt seem to know how google,fb work)

------
thehoomanist
“GoGoDuck”. Clearly a user.

~~~
Igor_Wiwi
fixed

------
dwardu
Disclaimer: this post is very subjective and all facts mentioned here are
purely my assumption So they're beliefs not facts

------
ausjke
Good points, I will trade money for privacy myself if there is an option, but
the product quality has to be good.

------
sbhn
usertesting.com pays you for your data. And earn.com pays you for your data

------
NoblePublius
And let’s make them charge us for sending emails with attachments.

------
netwanderer3
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 be “cognito” or “invisible” (perhaps
by just ticking a checkbox).

Higher tiers offering greater amounts of private searches per month will
simply cost more to purchase shall those consumers desire. Ran out of private
searches? Top it up just like prepaid phone credit! This way those users who
are extremely privacy conscious will have a solution to protect their own
privacy while Google has invented a new revenue stream and can even increase
profits from their valuable services.

The next generation Capitalism 2.0 will now enjoy privacy becoming a new cash
cow industry overnight. The question then will be how much are people willing
to pay for an unlimited account?

~~~
jefftk
_> 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.)

~~~
anoncake
> 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.

------
nerd7473
Although the idea sounds nice, I think it's impractical. Large companies don't
care about you, they care about profit...

