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Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by tsumnia on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @11:43AM (#20507620)
Just let me profit or opt-out of the sale! Some how the mindset/unspoken agreement/TOS-spoken agreement that I have to "pay" with my personal data to use these products has become too commonplace. It doesn't have to be much, but if I were allowed to generate an extra $20 a month that'd be great! I already use Google Rewards, and at this point that's the only "surveys" I get.

If I play fantasy futurologist for a second, it would even make for some interesting economics. Underrepresented groups for a particular analysis could pay more, because those groups' data is rarer. A straight, white, male techie is probably a saturated market, so I wouldn't generate much, but a Hispanic woman's could be more valuable.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by dehrmann on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @11:55AM (#20507737)
> the mindset...that I have to "pay" with my personal data to use these products has become too commonplace

I don't mind it so much when it's Facebook because it's clear they have to make money somehow. When it's the phone company that I pay money to, it's more surprising, and it feels like I'm being taken advantage of.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by chockZ on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:23PM (#20508460)
It's not your phone company that's making money from your location data so much as the third party apps (Yelp, Weather Channel etc.) that you have installed on your phone for free. In order to use those apps, you often have to consent to them sharing your location data to ad-tech companies to help them serve ads to you if you're in specific areas.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by Lownin on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:26PM (#20508478)
You sure about that? - "EFF Sues AT&T, Data Aggregators For Giving Bounty Hunters and Other Third Parties Access to Customers’ Real-Time Locations" - https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-sues-att-data-aggrega...
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by mrgreenfur on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:53PM (#20508183)
How are these different? Even if you already pay for a service they will maximize their return by doing everything that is legally allowed. This needs CCPA-style disclosure and opt out I think.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by chiefalchemist on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:56PM (#20508208)
The difference is expectation. I expect my phone calls to be private. That goes for the associated data.

I don't have the same expectation of FB. I don't know anyone who does.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by ska on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:29PM (#20508512)
> I don't know anyone who does.

This is a problem with running in mostly technical circles. I don't think your expectations are well aligned with "average citizen".

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by hutzlibu on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:20PM (#20508419)
I know people, who were very surprised to hear, that FB can read all their personal messages as well.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by komali2 on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:43PM (#20508103)
I highly recommend Doctorow's "Radicalized" for the other angle of this: pervasive, locked IoT devices baked-in to a rental agreement. "Only use proprietary soap for your washing machine - after all, that's the reason your rent is priced where it is."
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by guelo on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:02PM (#20507786)
The white male techie would still be more valuable because of the extra disposable income.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by citilife on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:02PM (#20507792)
These companies use your data to make money. Paying you would mean they'd have to make more than they pay you from the addition of said data.

Today, I suspect the benefit of having said data is probably unknown. This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends.

Showing you a random advertisement vs an advertisement based on the page info vs an advertisement with your data included. I suspect an advertisement based on the page info is 90+% of the value.

That being said, they can't truly pay you meaningful amounts for your data and answer to their shareholders. That's why it's not really done yet.

Plus, they dont' need to in many cases. The whole internet is designed to collect all this data from you, without your consent being necessary.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by koolba on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:15PM (#20507866)
> Today, I suspect the benefit of having said data is probably unknown. This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends.

One of the biggest purchasers of this data is private bounty hunters. It’s definitely useful to them, both in real time and “recent time”.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43z3dn/hundreds-bounty-hu...

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by tsumnia on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:27PM (#20508492)
> Paying you would mean they'd have to make more than they pay you from the addition of said data.

> This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends.

I disagree with this data point only because their current profits are being generated because they do not have to pay their data producers. And while I agree with the sentiment that the data is only valuable in aggregate, this doesn't mean my data is worth $0.00. Its still worth pennies, so maybe instead of $20, I earn $5, or less. The point is I'm paid for it. An analogy I had while I was driving over this comment is the equivalent to, say, an orange tree. A single orange is not as valuable as an "aggregate" of oranges.

In the current data economy, companies have maintenance expenses for their "orange harvesters", but not for the oranges themselves. Again, this has often brought up points of "you are using their service, its their data", but I'd say a) this bill clearly shows that some people do not agree with that sentiment, and b) (to continue with the farm analogy) this is where something like share farming [1] would be a usable model.

[1] https://dairy.ahdb.org.uk/technical-information/business-man...

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by chiefalchemist on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:59PM (#20508227)
> "This data is probably only valuable in aggregate to determine trends."

Aafaik, when the data is available on the free market that means anyone can buy it. Anyone includes your favorite three-letter intelligence agencies.

Imagine that. Your personal data without a wiretap or other legal authorization.

No thanks.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by acpetrov on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:37PM (#20508039)
The value of a targeted ad is a lot higher than just +10%
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by AznHisoka on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @11:50AM (#20507699)
The economics of location data is such that if providers had to pay them much per person, they'd no longer buy the data. If they paid the real worth per person, it'd probably come down to 1/2 cent a month.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by DevKoala on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:01PM (#20507777)
Not true. I work on a targeting product, and if we could have accurate targeting data for a business decision maker, we’d pay significantly more per individual. The problem is that most people’s targeting data is not worth that much. Particularly the data of those who’d want to make a buck off it.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by soared on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:51PM (#20508697)
1. You are profiting - you get all the apps and content for free.

2. > Underrepresented groups for a particular analysis could pay more, because those groups' data is rarer. A straight, white, male techie is probably a saturated market, so I wouldn't generate much, but a Hispanic woman's could be more valuable.

Audience size doesn't equate well to cost of data. Buying power is most correlated thing to data cost. In this fantasy, rich white techy males earn more money form their data, and a hispanic woman earns very little.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by thatcat on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:02PM (#20507782)
Your personal data often includes other peoples personal data though...
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by jammygit on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:22PM (#20507924)
Jaron lainier wrote a great book about your model called “Who Owns the Future.” In it, he describes a future where almost all profits go to large cloud centres and there are no jobs. He argues that by monetizing the data people produce that trains the ai of the future, people could avoid some of this and still have dignified lives and be self sufficient

Edit: typo

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by MaxBarraclough on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @04:11PM (#20509808)
I don't follow. If the majority of people create no wealth, it seems unlikely that getting paid only for their data is going be sustainable.

Today, no-one is interested in paying the poorest people in the world for their data.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by tsumnia on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:10PM (#20508325)
With the occasional discussions about a Universal Basic Income, this is how I viewed it'd be plausible.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by jammygit on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @03:47PM (#20509639)
Just to continue the discussion about the book, he dislikes basic income because it makes everybody fully dependent on the government for their wellbeing. He prefers a system where people have the dignity of having a way to earn their money :)

I'm not whether sure I agree or not, but the book was interesting

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by tsumnia on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @05:06PM (#20510205)
I don't mean basic income as a government expense; rather that the basic income is coming from selling your data and dictated by what the market is willing to pay for it.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by jammygit on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @08:20PM (#20511355)
Oh interesting, I misunderstood
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by 0xDEFC0DE on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:21PM (#20508430)
>Just let me profit or opt-out of the sale!

You'll get like $5 just once. It's valued at nowhere near $20/month.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by 50656E6973 on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:31PM (#20508528)
Facebook paid teens $20 a month to access their browsing history and DMs

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-pays-people-to-access-the...

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by zainhoda on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:59PM (#20508763)
Location data is much cheaper: $9.50/mo for 1000 users

https://www.cnet.com/news/location-data-from-a-gas-station-a...

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by ohazi on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @02:05PM (#20508816)
The goal is not to provide a knob for a power user, it's to change norms and avoid the tragedy-of-the-commons scenario that we're currently in.

Individual users are not going to opt out of anything, even though in aggregate, they state that they want the defaults to change.

Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by the_watcher on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @12:24PM (#20507940)
Yea, I really don't understand how T-Mobile (the Uncarrier!) hasn't figured out that they could just offer a $10 monthly credit in exchange for "opting in" and bask in the massive marketing windfall they could get from it.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by UnFleshedOne on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:51PM (#20508700)
Wouldn't data of opt-in users only be less valuable to bounty hunters, since their targets would opt out much more than the other population?
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by the_watcher on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @04:09PM (#20509796)
It would depend on what percentage of the data revenue is purely going to bounty hunters (my guess: low). Also, my understanding is that most bounty hunters are basically doing collections, not chasing down hardened criminals.
Re:New York City to Consider Banning Sale of Cellphone Locat... by maxerickson on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:44PM (#20508641)
It'd be even better if it were $50 or $100 a month!