The standard answer (at least for Google, not sure about Facebook) is that they're not considered data brokers because they only sell ad placement based on the data, not the data itself.
One could make a case for splitting the data collection activities from the ad sales business as part of an anti trust case. Or pass regulations and laws to that effect.
That would be a pretty weird case to make. Typically anti trust is used to prevent a business from using market dominance in one market from entering another market. Considering they don’t participate in the data sales business it’d be a weird scenario to force them to start. I’d prefer we don’t force them to start.
Gmail with ads seems way preferable to Gmail who sells your data to others.
> One could make a case for splitting the data collection activities from the ad sales business as part of an anti trust case. Or pass regulations and laws to that effect.
That would be a net negative for privacy, because it would mean more parties having access to your data (without your consent or even knowledge). And given the state of security in ad-tech aside from Google, that means the chances of your data getting breached and leaked would increase exponentially.
Google helped craft these laws. This is classic regulatory capture.
In particular, it is banning horizontally integrated surveillance capitalism (which requires the sale of data between the data gathering companies and the people using it), but not vertically integrated surveillance capitalism.
In all likelihood, some companies in this ecosystem will be forced to sell at fire sales to conglomerates (like Google) simply to avoid having to comply with this law. Of course, this benefits organizations that are large enough to acquire the companies, and no one else.
So, people with financial conflicts of interest are picking winners and losers, which is pretty much standard practice in US politics these days.
I personally think this whole consumer tracking industry should be shut down. It should be illegal to gather the types of information that this bill regulates.
Exactly, for data sales, the advertiser gets the information up front.
For ad placement, they only get it after you click on the ad, and it's only linked to you personally by your IP address and browser fingerprinting, or more directly if you log in or buy something.
