Big Tech companies have gained a lot of power by selling our data. Let’s take Facebook as an example. It seems that you can use their services for free, but you are essentially paying by using the application, which creates a lot of data which can be sold to advertisers. By focusing on customer experience, combined with free access to the service, Facebook was able to grow to one of the most valued companies using the principle of network effects. Since Facebook accumulated more than two billion users, selling data has become a more valuable business model than a subscription fee due to the scale of their operation. The more you use Facebook, the more they now about your interests and the more information they can sell to advertisers.
Unfortunately, your user data is not only used for showing you ads of your favourite shoe company for example. According to Mueller (2019), Russia was able to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election using Facebooks advertising tools by targeting misleading ads to a highly susceptible audience. The influence and power of Big Tech is getting too high and has to be decreased to prevent events like this to happen in the future.
On the forefront to take back ownership of your data is former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. In July, a consumer privacy act became effective in California which allows consumers to retrieve information about what data has been collected from them by companies, who it is being sold to and it also gives them an option to opt out the sale of their personal information. Yang has put in effort to pass similar laws in other states and also has partnered with an organisation, Humanity Forward, that wants to gather consumers to collectively bargain for data prices, so individuals receive a fair price in return.
However, this will incentivise users to still give data to Big Tech and will therefore not decrease their power and influence. Using information as a property will not be the optimal solution for ending the usage of our user data by malicious parties. Kerry and Morris (2019) suggest enforcing a new federal privacy law which would protect the personal information by making all data used in transactions fully anonymous, just like in health insurance data, rather than how Facebook builds a personal profile about your interests. This solution also has some limitations, for example the lesser degree of freedom of choice, since the right for individuals to sell their personal data would be taken away. In my opinion, the ultimate solution would be for users and consumers to radically change behaviour in usage of social media and web services to lessen the impact of targeted misinformation in order to keep the choice of selling your user data, but due to increasing radicalisation on internet forums creating digital echo chambers, this solution will not be effective to make world-wide changes in the short term.
As legislation is encouraging consumers to take ownership of their data, it seems that influence and power of Big Tech will remain high in the near future. Do you think that letting people share in the profits made from their own data is a right which should be implemented worldwide? Should further action be taken by governments to try to limit power from Big Tech by decreasing freedom of choice or is it up to the people to make a change?
Sources:
Eddy, M. (2018, October 10). How Companies Turn Your Data Into Money [Illustration]. https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-companies-turn-your-data-into-money
Galloway, S. (2018). The Four. Van Haren Publishing.
Kerry, C. F., & Morris, J. B. (2019, June 26). Why data ownership is the wrong approach to protecting privacy. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/06/26/why-data-ownership-is-the-wrong-approach-to-protecting-privacy/
Mueller, R. (2019, March). Report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5955118-The-Mueller-Report.html
The Social Dilemma. (2020, September 22). “The Social Dilemma” – Take Action. https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/take-action/
Yang, A. (2020, June 22). Your Data Should Belong to You — and not to the Big Tech Companies. Humanity Forward. https://movehumanityforward.com/blog/your-data-should-belong-to-you-and-not-to-the-big-tech-companies/
Thanks for your well written article Sjoerd. I don’t think that letting people share in the profits should be a right. The profits should be for the platform that you are using, instead of paying in cash you pay with information. It would also be weird to force companies in giving back a part of the cash you payed for their product. But I still believe that it is indeed a problem that information is collected massively and there should be law about protecting and managing this data. I believe a big change is needed in the behaviour of people. People need to be aware about the fact they are paying for the service with their data. I believe that a law should be in place that describes it is mandatory to show users a message that if they want to use this service they are paying with their data. This should be clearly shown (like a cookie warning) describing all the things that are collected from the user “email, date, name, address” and that these are used to target them.
If people are still not changing their behaviour, maybe we as society should accept that people don’t mind paying with their data. If no governmental communication or services require such an account on social media, it always stays optional to pay with your data.
Hi Sjoerd,
Great blog post! I think the questions you pose are very relevant during these times.
We often hear that people say that “they have nothing to hide”, but the possible influence on the presidential elections that you referred to prove that there are much greater societal risks, something most people don’t realize.
In fact, if you take the time to watch “The Great Hack” (it’s on Netflix) you’ll see an elaboration of how Cambridge Analytica reportedly helped influence a lot of other so-called ‘democratic elections’, for example the Brexit. This is something society should be wary about, much more than we are now.
Another interesting documentary on this topic would be “The Social Dilemma” (also on Netflix). It poses that it is not in fact the personal data that is sold as the product to advertisers (they actually receive very little to no personal data at all) but that the product is the power to influence the platform audience to make slightly different decisions than they would, hadn’t they seen particular advertisements – a viewpoint I do agree on.
The actual asset here is not money, but attention/influence. Therefore, I do doubt that making people share in the profit will make any real difference. Regulatory action to monitor and (if necessary) regulate this influence that these platforms have sounds more as a solution to me.
Cheers,
Redeëet
Hi Sjoerd,
I also think that the topic of data ownership is very interesting and not discussed enough regarding its high importance and influence.
I have just published a blog post about this topic myself, in which I informed about DECODE, an experimental project by the EU to develop practical alternatives to how we use the internet today. The idea is to find ways to use data as a public good rather than a profitable resource held by a few big, private companies.
With this idea of seeing data as a public good, we could maybe think about a tax on data IN data. As in for every data you store and use, you have to provide data for projects in public interest. Just a spontaneous idea.
Keep up the good work
Marleen
Hi Sjoerd, a really interesting topic you wrote about! In my opinion, there needs to be more awareness about data ownership since this topic is discussed less to nothing. By making it negotiable and creating awareness people can gain more knowledge about this topic and make more wise decisions.
In my point of view, it will not be feasible and implementable to let people take a share of the profits made from their data as it concerns a large number of people that participate in some companies/platforms. Moreover, people should remember that nothing comes free and that companies need to make some profit in a manner. Therefore, the gained profit should be for the companies/platforms that enable users to use the services. However, I also think that this power of acquiring data should be limited. Regulations regarding data ownership are more needed, especially since the world is becoming more digitized. Governance could play a big role in implementing and executing these regulations, they are needed to reduce the power of Big Tech companies. Data can include sensitive information that a person would not like to share with others. The person itself should be able to decide on what to share and what not. In this manner to have ownership of their own data.
Roman made an interesting comment regarding your post about making people more aware by showing them a message. I think that could indeed be a possible solution. If people accept the conditions of entering the service than all responsibility would be for them Nevertheless, companies can take advantage of this option by denying access if conditions are not accepted which could place someone in a difficult position. One thing is certain some sort of regulation is needed to control big tech companies