Re:Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws
by _bxg1 on Friday May 25, 2018 @11:31AM
(#17154652)
Setting aside older ad-showing media (newspapers, magazines, cable TV), even the web itself did just fine before today's holistic individual ad-targeting. For the most part, today's problematic practices started happening after the Dot Com boom.
It's amazing the point we've reached, where egregious tracking is so normalized that we assume it's fundamental to the internet's feasibility. Facebook and Google aren't meek charity-organizations, trying to give the world free stuff and only asking for the pittance of our data, to help keep the lights on. Their profit margins are enormous. They could do quite well for themselves without any tracking at all, just showing random ads. Not to mention that many people would pay for their services if it meant getting rid of ads altogether.
The reason they don't offer individuals the option to pay for their services instead of being tracked isn't out of charity. It's because they would make less money. Your data is more valuable than any reasonable monthly fee you'd be willing to pay.
If GDPR puts an end to the gold-rush that's happening at the expense of everyone else in society, forcing tech companies to make a normal amount of money instead of an insane amount of money, that sounds to me like an unambiguous good.
It's amazing the point we've reached, where egregious tracking is so normalized that we assume it's fundamental to the internet's feasibility. Facebook and Google aren't meek charity-organizations, trying to give the world free stuff and only asking for the pittance of our data, to help keep the lights on. Their profit margins are enormous. They could do quite well for themselves without any tracking at all, just showing random ads. Not to mention that many people would pay for their services if it meant getting rid of ads altogether.
The reason they don't offer individuals the option to pay for their services instead of being tracked isn't out of charity. It's because they would make less money. Your data is more valuable than any reasonable monthly fee you'd be willing to pay.
If GDPR puts an end to the gold-rush that's happening at the expense of everyone else in society, forcing tech companies to make a normal amount of money instead of an insane amount of money, that sounds to me like an unambiguous good.