We trust the government to regulate and control all sorts of things (tv, radio communication bandwidth, some local utilities) I don’t see why having some sort of oversight and rules governing what Facebook can do with data it collects is a problem. At the very least guaranteeing consumers access to all the data Facebook has about them could be a start.

All of those examples you give are a) easily identifiable (e.g you are transmitting on a particular frequency) and b) scarce due to very high barriers to entry (e.g betting a power utility).

Web sites are different. Facebook is just one end of a spectrum of thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of electronic destinations that come and go, and cost a few bucks to operate.

Regulations aimed at Facebook would potentially end up targeting every web site with user generated content.

I really wonder if the NYT does this piece to bargain a deal with facebook of some sort. Which kind of company calls for regulation on another company? The nerve!

However, I do sympathize on how much facebook is getting from its network effected position. It looks impossible to dethrone. Same for google.

I think the change has to come from how users deal with their own data. If you as a consumer had unlimited access to your data, you could potentially resell it to someone else, forcing facebook and the likes to compete on price. The key here is that the data has to be owned by the consumer, not by facebook itself.

How do you distrust governments and Google, Apple, Facebook, Samsung, HTC, Verizon, Comcast, etc., while still using the internet meaningfully, or really, participate in society meaningfully? In the current climate pretty much everybody understands, on some level, that by using "the internet" you are letting unknown third parties create a market out of your private life at no compensation to you beyond access to their "service". Yet we all continue tapping away on our shiny screens. In many ways it's really a deplorable, unacceptable situation.

It sounds like you distrust these companies too while using the internet meaningfully. Distrusting someone doesn't necessarily mean you avoid any interaction with them at all.

Everyone understands that letting third parties sell your personal data at no cost to you is what happens when you use the internet, but it doesn't have to be that way.

With some meaningful regulation, we could put a stop to this overnight. The internet existed and flourished before this manipulative business model became the norm, and it would exist if we outlawed it. We wouldn't even need to outlaw it, just require explicit written consent to sell personal data.

Can you imagine the ramifications? Once you eliminate the lazy, tired, and frankly intellectually barren model of "make a mediocre service that sucks enough personal data from our users so we can sell ads against them", startups could go back to designing products that solve interesting problems that people are willing to pay for!

What does "sell your personal data" mean? Facebook (and Google) doesn't do that - it's much more profitable to keep it guarded so you can charge for services based on it (like ads) again and again.

So what specifically would that regulation say?

You no longer have options.

In the end, all systems must have some form of regulator - from engines to code. If you are lucky, you create a governing function by playing engine forces against each other.

Demand is modulated by the ability of a pipe to supply fuel for example.

But most systems may not be with a self governable/equilibrium point. OR they may have one, but it is obviously repugnant to the purpose of the system.

It is then only logical, that a governing system is introduced to deal with the problem within the confines of what is human and practical.

The alternative is not necessarily something of value.

Nytimes has nowhere near the influence facebook does, and it’s way less unhealthy of a behavior as one of myriad similar sources. They average out to being harder to manipulate than facebook is.

Or at the very least, more expensive.

We do regulate the NYTIMES, it's called libel laws. If the NYTIMES publishes a false article about you to their millions of readers, you can sue them.

Let's suppose a false rumor about you spread to hundreds of millions of readers on Facebook. You're shit out of luck and Facebook doesn't have to pay a dime. Germany however might change that with the new law.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41042266

A democratic state is (at least to some extent) accountable to its citizens. Facebook is only accountable to Mark Zuckerberg.

Governments' accountability to their citizens seems to be weak at the best of time, and giving the government control over the channels used by those citizens to communicate and co-ordinate with each other certainly isn't going to help with that.

And to its users.

Facebook is accountable to their customers, which are the firms that they sell ads to.

Facebook is accountable to their users in the same way a farmer is accountable to his livestock.