Companies that obtain and sell your user information should have to pay you royalties. Agree or disagree?

Privacy concerns are a very popular and valid talking point on Lemmy, so I would like to gather your thoughts and opinions on this. (Apologies if it’s already been discussed!)

Would you support this? Would it work or even be viable? (If it could somehow overcome the rabid resistance from these big companies). What are your thoughts?

Personally, I’m getting more and more agitated at the state of this late stage global capitalism, where companies have the gall to ask you to pay or subscribe to their products, while they already make money from you for selling your data. It’s been an issue for a long time now, but seems to really be ramping up.

LilDestructiveSheep,
@LilDestructiveSheep@lemmy.world avatar

It all comes down to one thing:

You agreed to the terms and agreements. You don’t have to.

But in general… imo… it should be absolutely forbidden to sell data and governments should finally do something and stop sleeping.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

If I go to google, do a search, and click a link they will be tracking all of that with nary a term or condition in sight.

BraveSirZaphod,
BraveSirZaphod avatar

There's a "Terms" link in the bottom right, though most people will never read it because most people don't actually care.

Lmaydev,

It makes you agree to the terms on first use. Does it every time you enter private browsing.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

I just tried that on Firefox Focus, which is always in private browsing mode, and there was no “accept terms and conditions.”

LilDestructiveSheep,
@LilDestructiveSheep@lemmy.world avatar

I believe if you completely new (like after deleting cookies) they will make you agree to the terms and agreements before you can use the service.

K3zi4,

Totally get this, and the argument that free services can only remain so from selling your data to keep running. But it just seems like such a predatory thing, there was no negotiation in this. It was just inflicted on Internet users within ridiculously lengthy terms and conditions.

I understand the logic of it, but I completely disagree with how we got to this stage. It feels very perverse. And I am in total agreement that something definitely needs to be done- soon.

LilDestructiveSheep,
@LilDestructiveSheep@lemmy.world avatar

Absolutely.

Ofc they use the data to make money. But there are not so many rules set to it. It feels like governments slept in this area for the past 20 years and it’s ridiculous.

We’re so deep in its impossible to really resign from it anymore.

marshadow,

I’m an ordinary person with an average level of intelligence, and T&Cs are incomprehensible to me thanks to pretentious language often written in all caps. And it’s not me being unusually stupid

LilDestructiveSheep,
@LilDestructiveSheep@lemmy.world avatar

This. Its on a lot of languages like this. The less you understand, the better.

Salix,

This could help

lord_ryvan,

That’s a nice idea, and I’ve contributed to it, as well, but it’s got far too little info on it.

BraveSirZaphod,
BraveSirZaphod avatar

The fundamental frustration is that people want to get a thing for free without any cost or inconvenience to them in the slightest.

And like, that's valid - paying for things is annoying - but people generally aren't in the habit of doing things for you for no personal gain. Put another way, it's kinda nuts that, at no direct monetary cost, a person can access a functionally unlimited amount of video and music, can send instantaneous messages to nearly anyone on the planet, can create a personal repository of videos and images and share them with people you know, etc etc. The amount of things you can do in the modern world where the only cost is the mild annoyance of being advertised to is genuinely insane, especially given the massive technical and administrative challenges that come with running a platform like YouTube.

And while I do understand the desire for the option to actually pay money for services instead of data, the sheer fact of the matter is that, given the choice between something costing money and it costing data, 95% of people will choose the free option.

And at the end of the day, most of these things are not actually required to live. Even for services that are functionally necessary today, like email, there are privacy-focused services that provide it. There is simply no world in which a something like Gmail, YouTube, or Instagram exist without bringing in any revenue, because even ignoring the profit required by capitalism, running massive services like that comes with very large costs. The engineers and infrastructure alone cost a fortune, and that fortune has to come from somewhere, whether it be marketing budgets or user fees. We're never going to get services of this nature without paying those costs in one way or another.

KaiReeve,

We already pay. Every month. I pay $85/mo to access the Internet from home and an additional $90/mo to access it from my phone. Add on my streaming bills and I’m paying roughly $2400/yr already. So yeah, YouTube should be free. Gmail should be free. No ads, no privacy violations, just included in what I’m already paying.

This used to be standard back with AOL and EarthLink. Your email was just included.

gamermanh,
@gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

What a baffling lack of basic understanding of how the Internet works

KaiReeve,

Oh? So my understanding of how Google profits off user data is incorrect? My belief that the ISPs are profit-driven entities is inaccurate?

If the harvest and sale of user data had been made illegal in 1993 would Google have progressed the way it did? Would they be forced to charge a fee for their email and video hosting services? Would that have incentivized them to maybe make a deal with the ISPs to be included with the monthly payments we already make?

What if local government owned and maintained all the existing internet infrastructure? Would we have been able to choose which ISP we preferred all these years rather than essentially having to pick between coax or satellite? Would ISPs then have been incentivized to pick up additional services like email, video, and image hosting in order to gain more customers?

Are we experiencing the best possible version of the internet, or could it be better?

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever,

In that case, your “email” is included with your ISP. You can be an at comcast.net or whatever if you really want to.

Aside from that: Your boss pays Sally. So why should they pay you? You should just work for free

Which is the “problem” with not having a single monolithic entity (no, even Google doesn’t count). Comcast gets their cut but Youtube doesn’t. And then the Creators who make the stuff you watch on Youtube don’t get paid either.

KaiReeve,

I’m not saying Google shouldn’t get paid. I’m saying that there are standard Internet services that are used widely enough that they could be bundled with what we already pay. We pay enough already to have those basic services included.

So we pay the ISP, the ISP pays the service provider, and the service provider pays the content creator. We pay enough to the ISPs that we shouldn’t have to pay extra for these basic services.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever,

Again, your boss pays Sally enough. Why should they have to pay you? She can figure it out

Also, 80 bucks a month is NOT that much in the scheme of how many servers need to be maintained to get you your cute kitten video (whether it is a lot more than comcast needs to throttle your connection is a different discussion). By the time that trickles down to the person who made that helpful youtube channel about how to replace a bath tub faucet? It is not even a penny.

And this is WHY a lot of smaller content creators are very much worried about the ever growing shift to patreon models. Because that overly benefits the large content creation groups. Someone will pay 5 bucks a month for a couple dozen hours of podcasts from a big group. They aren’t going to pay that for a single video by someone who ACTUALLY went through what “the paper trick” is for a 3d printer. Which gets back to there being a monolithic entity that controls and produces all content on the internet.

KaiReeve,

How many people would you estimate use the internet? I’m paying $100 per month per person on my household. If you multiply $100 per month times the number of people who use the internet, I’m sure you have enough for servers, infrastructure, programmers, and plenty left over for content creators.

Sally and I work for the same company. The company pays both of us. The customer pays the company. If the customer already pays the company, should they have to pay Sally extra for her involvement?

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever,

Again, your entire premise is that The Internet is one company. It isn’t.

And, again, you are VASTLY underestimating the cost of these massive services like Youtube or Twitch. There is a reason that the only two viable ones are backed by The Company That Owns The Internet and The Company That Owns Internet Shopping and that both are HEAVILY leveraged by the cloud compute offerings provided by said companies. And the vast majority of social media companies aren’t much better and are built around more or less operating at a loss and relying on venture capital and a buyout by someone dumb enough to buy tumblr (and Yahoo ain’t buying much more these days).

Are ISPs being vastly overpaid? Yes, yes, and yes. But even if all of that money were distributed out, it wouldn’t cover all of the content you watch. Like, we all made fun of twitter for not even being able to host an episode of a fox news sitcom. But that is because it is not just hosting in that case. It is about setting up a content distribution network such that there is availability to everyone who wants to watch it and they can get it in a timely fashion.

Like, let’s think back to video rentals. If 900k people wanted to rent Showgirls then you needed 900k VHS tapes. Except… no. You need more. Because John in Spokane is horny now. He isn’t going to wait the two weeks it takes for headquarters to ship a VHS out to the Blockbuster in Spokane. And headquarters isn’t going to ship a single VHS. They are going to box up a batch of them to save on postage costs. So instead, you need to predict how many copies of Showgirls each Blockbuster needs. You know that the 4th Street Blockbuster in Pittsburgh doesn’t really bother to rent softcore stuff, but apparently the 6th street in Spokane LOVES skinemax. So maybe send one copy to the former and ten to the latter.

And that is the internet except it is happening on a massive scale. Which is a big part of why netflix et al are purging their back catalog.

KaiReeve,

I am not operating under any such premise, but I am tired of arguing. It avails us not to continue this discussion.

BraveSirZaphod,
BraveSirZaphod avatar

...you do understand that you paying Comcast or whoever does not automatically give money to Google, right?

Not to mention, what you're proposing is that the cost of all major internet service be included in your monthly internet bill, so you'd be paying for all of them, even if you don't use them. And you would find this to be an improvement?

In case you're unaware, running a service like YouTube is incredibly costly. The bandwidth costs alone are massive - YouTube is nearly 10% of all internet traffic - not to mention the cost of paying engineers and purchasing the infrastructure needed to support storing, processing, and streaming millions and millions of videos every day. Someone has to pay for that, whether it's you subscribing to YouTube Premium, you watching ads, or your proposal of bundling service fees into your internet bill.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever, (edited )

Yup

Like. a lot of us have grievances with reddit. But the third party apps were actively preventing corporate reddit from monetizing the site (and were often taking the money people might otherwise have paid as a subscription). reddit chose the route of disabling third party apps and changing nothing else which… was a choice

But other sites realize that you can use user data instead of ads. Rather than sell products to the user, they sell users to the products. And most people have zero issue with this because they never see an ad… at that site.

Its why I REALLY dislike the piped bot or whatever it is that automatically replies to every youtube link with “And if you don’t want to give them any money, click me”. That is just begging for google to go stupider with youtube (and they already are, at the “free” tier).

And it is why, for decades now, so many of us have been discouraging the use of adblockers by default. Use blocklists, not permit lists. Because if a site is responsibly serving up curated ads, let them. And if a site is not serving up ads in a way that you like… do you care about the site enough to visit it? But, people didn’t and now even the “good” websites are shilling dick pills and massively invasive tracking cookies because it was that or shut down.

All of which is why The Fediverse is gonna get REAL interesting over the next few months. Mastodon and Lemmy have had massive surges of users… which means storage and traffic costs. And it is going to be REAL interesting to see how the instance admins justify monetizing even while having bots that run around actively demonetizing other content (like the summary bot). Considering past experiences: There are gonna be some really pissed off and “betrayed” users

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

They shouldn’t be able to obtain data beyond what’s strictly necessary for the service, never mind sell it.

People don’t understand the value of the data, and there’s no good way to put a price on it, honestly. As in, no, just because Reddit or whoever can make 5£$€ a year off me, doesn’t mean I’d be ok to sell it for 2£$€.

BraveSirZaphod,
BraveSirZaphod avatar

I understand the ideal here, but I do genuinely wonder, if a heavy amount of data collection is necessary for complex tech services to be provided at no monetary cost, then the obvious consequence of a policy like this will be paywalls. You see that with newspapers, where even the most obnoxious level of advertising generally isn't enough to cover costs.

And will people actually pay money to use something like Google Search, Gmail, or Instagram? Paid e-mail providers that respect privacy already exist, and people generally don't use them, because people don't actually care that much. Is it really appropriate for the government to outlaw a revenue model that people have clearly revealed themselves to prefer to direct user fees?

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

The surveillance of this scale isn’t necessary. I’m not against serving me ads based on the current web page I’m on right now. Or based on the current email or search, since the provider has access to that anyway (unless it’s e2e). Or make a profile of me based on a voluntary questionnaire.

Some companies work like that and they survive just fine. It’s absolutely not necessary to collect every little bit of detail of my life to serve me ads. It’s only the predatory companies that do that, and especially the multi-trillion corporations.

Furthermore, those “free” services in exchange for user data may not even be good. Take Google, how they push everything that serves their needs, even if better alternatives are available (or were, before they were smothered).

I.e. crappy quality of Google search is well documented, Chrome no comment, Drive is pushed so hard that you can’t get a Pixel phone with decent storage and most phones don’t offer memory cards because Google makes it difficult… Etc.

So yea, I’m totally for limiting the collection of data to the barest minimum. There’s literally no downsides to anybody except to the dystopian corporations.

Ed: that’s not even mentioning all the dark patterns these corpos use to sign you up, or how you can’t opt out or you have no choice because of monopolies. That’s not “choosing” or “agreeing”, that’s extortion.

YoBuckStopsHere,
@YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world avatar

Only I should be able to rent out my personal data to selected companies and they should pay rent monthly to retain that information. I should have termination rights with a 60 day notice.

thepianistfroggollum,

You do rent out your personal data. That’s how you pay for free services.

YoBuckStopsHere,
@YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world avatar

I looked it up, if a consumer opts out of the sale of personal information, the business must refrain from selling the personal information collected by the business and respect the decision to opt out for at least 12 months before requesting that the consumer opt-in to the sale of their personal information. This is required by current U.S. law.

YoBuckStopsHere,
@YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world avatar

There is no rental agreement there. They straight up take your data. You should have a right who can take and use your data.

gelberhut,

According to GDPR they must remove your data if you requires so.

BraveSirZaphod,
BraveSirZaphod avatar

All of those services have terms and privacy policies that you are more than welcome to read, disagree with, and decide to not use the service.

I can't personally recall Google Data Collection Agents bursting into my home and stealing all my data, but perhaps they also wiped my memory or something.

olsonexi,

Except sometimes you can’t not use the service.

It’s completely unreasonable to expect people to quit their job just because they disagree with the terms and conditions of a single piece of software they’re required to use for work. If that service is collecting their data, there’s basically nothing they can do about it.

gelberhut,

If you use a service for job needs, this is not your data, this is your employer data. And it can request a removal as well. Moreover, corporate contracts usually are not ad based.

thepianistfroggollum,

No, you agree to them harvesting your data when you use the service. TANSTAAFL

lord_ryvan,

You can’t just go “whoops you clicked our link, we’re harvesting all your data now whether you like it or not!”

deleted,

Yeah let’s offer them a subscription model.

qooqie, (edited )

I agree. I’ve always thought it was weird that companies can sell our personal data including health data without our consent most of the times. And we can’t get any money in return for the value our data generates. If they said, yeah you make $1 couple of hours of you using your phone, I’d probably be a little more keen, but I also value privacy lol

Edit: also just the amount of data collected and how much they can figure out about anyone is fucking terrifying. I like my privacy not because I have something to hide, but because no one would want a stalker who knows everything about you

Apollo2323,

Most of the time they give you a “free” product in return like Gmail or 15GB of “free” space.

slazer2au,

without our consent

Oh, you didn’t read our 30 page 8 font legalese terms of service saying we can do what we want with the data we need to collect to provide you with this thing.

I’d put /s but it is not sarcasm. The Mozilla foundation privacy not included and Terms Of Service;Didn’t Read have good info as who collects what.

BraveSirZaphod,
BraveSirZaphod avatar

While I definitely would like better transparency on data collection practices, I don't think that solves the fundamental frustration that people want to use a costly service without paying anything. The fact of the matter is that I think, for most people at least, if you transparently tell them "We're going to collect a bunch of data in order to serve you targeted advertisements, and in exchange, you get to use Instagram for free", most people will find that to be a fine deal, or at least better than paying money or not using the service at all.

swordsmanluke,

Disagree. Privacy should be the default.

Collecting information should be legal only in so far as it supports the customer’s use of a product/service. E.g. It’s nice if my doctor can keep a medical history on file, or my mechanic can do the same for my car.

Selling/disclosing information to third parties should be illegal.

unodostres,

Agree

pissclumps,

I don’t care about royalties. They should pay a gigantic tax for selling it tho

Toneswirly,

yeah honestly the fraction of a cent I’d get negotiated wouldn’t make a dent in my life. I’d much rather we as a collective hold companies accountable for selling off our data. Politicians too; they’re all trying squeeze us for everything they can, and we consent by being apathetic.

Blackmist,

I’d prefer it if they simply weren’t allowed to collect it in the first place.

And I don’t think it would be viable, because no fucking way am I giving these parasites any banking information so they could pay me a pittance of what they get. They’d fucking sell that too!

It should be a requirement that you can see your own profile at any time, see everything they know about you, be able to edit it (including clearing it, and not with a billion checkboxes either), and lock it to prevent further modification and addition by themselves.

swordsmanluke,

Well, partial good news for you, friend! (Assuming you’re in the US)

California’s new CPRA law went into effect at the start of the year. As part of that law, CA residents can request to see their data, be deleted or edit it. Since it’s hard to validate whether someone is actually a resident or not, most places just allow everyone to do those things now.

But there are some big caveats. One is that getting access to your data can be complicated. There’s a risk of, e.g. an evil-ex requesting your info in order to stalk you, so some places will just confirm or deny the info you send. “Do you have my name? How about this email address?”, etc, but you can’t say "Gimme everything for ".

You can ask for all your personal data to be deleted. But the law says to delete everything… Which includes the fact that you made such a request, so the next time data about you arrives, the company has no record to indicate they should not collect it.

It’s a start.

aliostraat,

Absolutely. I think the difficulties in ensuring the data owner gets paid properly highlight the fact that gathering this data needs to be approved by the data owner and can’t just be done willy nilly. Data is a valuable resource, although in the most part intangible. It’s this intangibility that has given data hearders the impression its up for grabs. The whole system needs strick rules to protect people’s data wealth and not to mention privacy.

zik,

And I should get to set the price since it’s my data in the first place.

malloc,

Not just in the initial sale, but for every time my data is used.

makatwork,

Yes

glitches_brew,

I wonder what the side effects of this would be… There would suddenly be incentive for people to shape their lives in ways that would make them more attractive to advertisers, at least on paper.

I wonder if we would see improvementw to society at a macro level if people start making changes to be the types that are paid more for their data.

PiecePractical,

“Bro, we hitting the bar tonight?”

“Hell yeah! I’m three beers away from extra heavy drinker status this month. Let’s get that AB-Inbev cash!!”

(Sounds of chest bumping)

oxjox,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

Consumer: I like your product. Can I use it?
Company: Sure thing! It’s free but we’re going to take your data and sell it.
Consumer: Okay!
. . . Consumer: Hey, you’re selling that data I told you you could sell as long as I can use your product for free! You should give me commission.

Me: Don’t use things that sell your data. Start by deleting the apps from your phone in favor of the web version. Make sure to decline allowing websites and services to track your usage. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
What should be even more concerning at the moment is the Mozilla report that came out reporting that every car company is now extracting more of your personal information than TikTok or Facebook. …mozilla.org/…/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-…

According to Mozilla research, popular global brands — including BMW, Ford, Toyota, Tesla, Kia, and Subaru — can collect deeply personal data such as sexual activity, immigration status, race, facial expressions, weight, health and genetic information, and where you drive. Researchers found data is being gathered by sensors, microphones, cameras, and the phones and devices drivers connect to their cars, as well as by car apps, company websites, dealerships, and vehicle telematics. Brands can then share or sell this data to third parties. Car brands can also take much of this data and use it to develop inferences about a driver’s intelligence, abilities, characteristics, preferences, and more.

Iceblade02,

You act as if it is actually feasible or reasonable to choose not to uae these services, when it, in fact, would be a severe handicap in day-to-day life

oxjox,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

Do you have an example?

jcit878,

try navigating along distance trip you’ve never done before without google/apple/bing maps. they don’t publish hard copy street directorys anymore where I am

oxjox,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

There’s actually a number of mapping apps that are better than Google or Apple maps. Mapquest looks pretty good.

So, it seems more so the case that you’re acting as if there are no other choices when in fact there are.

oxjox,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

For iOS,
Google Maps Third-Party Advertising:
Location: Coarse Location
Search History: Search History
Browsing History: Browsing History
Identifiers: User ID
Usage Data: Advertising Data
Other Data: Other Data Types

Apple Maps Third-Party Advertising: N/A

Iceblade02,

To start with, an ISP. Most of them collect user data. Many services, such as banking, are unavailable or restricted over VPN (assuming you find one that doesn’t also collect your data).

Next, a smartphone. You’re limited to iOS or android, unless you have the option to root your device (which is a hassle), and both are basically loaded with spyware.

Your debit/credit card. Many providers will collect and monetize data regarding your purchases.

Your car (if newer than about 2010) or your public transit provider.

Need I go on? Try living without just one of these things.

oxjox,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m talking about deleting the FREE Facebook app from your phone and you’re talking about PAID ISPs. You’re not wrong but you’ve changed the conversation to ignore my point…

Company: Sure thing! It’s free but we’re going to take your data and sell it.
Consumer: Okay!
Start by deleting the apps from your phone in favor of the web version. Make sure to decline allowing websites and services to track your usage. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

How is deleting FREE apps from your phone and declining to allow websites to track you not a good start and how would this handicap your day-to-day life? My point is that if you’re suing something for free, you are the product. This needs to be at the forefront of people’s minds and they need to be made aware of the ramifications of choosing to use these FREE services.

Granted, I should have been more clear and said “Don’t use FREE things that sell your data”.

Yeah - there’s a lot to be concerned about. Hell yes there’s a huge concern about a PAID service also harvesting your data.
Let’s START by deleting apps off our phones because this is what we currently have the most control over and they’re the one’s harvesting the most kinds of data to sell to brokers.

Iceblade02,

How is deleting FREE apps from your phone and declining to allow websites to track you not a good start and how would this handicap your day-to-day life?

Okay, for an exact example. I have a work email via microsoft 365. Because I choose to not have the outlook app installed on any of my devices I do not get notified when I have unread mail.

Thus, I need to go through the abysmal web app login several times per day (because it automatically logs me out), and click through nagging pop ups imploring me to install the app in order to confirm whether I have any pending mail.

oxjox,
@oxjox@lemmy.ml avatar

What privacy concerns are there with the Outlook app?

Iceblade02,

I don’t know, I didn’t read the entire 174 page privacy statement. In this case, I just assume that they exist and that I do not want their app installed on my phone, especially considering the permissions it wants.

ShittyBeatlesFCPres,

Do people here responding with “It’s a free service!” not realize paid services sell your data just as much? The ISP you’re using to read this is selling your data.

And the T&C terms are not anywhere near informed consent. They’re just permission to do anything they want with your data. Quit acting like consumer protection laws aren’t needed as long as someone clicked “I agree” to use a service required for modern life. We all know you can click “Cancel” and go live in the forest. We’d rather a third option besides exploitation and going feral.

Also, quit licking boot. You’re killing the jobs of PR people when you shill for corporations for free.

zeppo,
@zeppo@lemmy.world avatar

People also say “well did you pay them anything??” to excuse when an ad/data supported business abuses a member. Take Facebook, for instance. I don’t care if we’re “the product” or customers… one way or the other, they make money from people using the site.

lord_ryvan,

Man, NordVPN sells your data to Google, among others!

This is why we can’t have good things anymore.

malloc,

just take a look at T&Cs and privacy disclaimers for auto manufacturers. Mozilla did an analysis and found all of them just stink. Imagine paying $30K for a brand new car, only to get your information sold by the dealership to shady warranty companies. The auto manufacturer selling out your data in perpetuity and listening to everything. Oh and one auto manufacturer is making claims on your sexual activity LOL

Welcome to the unregulated market of big data in the USA

okamiueru,

I’m pretty sure ISPs don’t do this in the EU. Or, if they do, then they are in for a big hurt.

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