The reason there are so many wonderful services available for free is because they make money selling your data. If the service is free, the product is you.

For many, many people, that is _fine_.

The real issue I see here is how this law is written and how we're interpreting it. If the law makes it so that people who want to opt out of free internet services because of privacy concerns are free to do so, then we're all good. If the law is written such that people who want to avail themselves of free services in exchange for their data are no longer able to do so because that business model is broken, then I see a lot of problems.

> For many, many people, that is _fine_.

I would argue this isn't the case. For many people it is out of sight and out of mind. They don't realize what's happening.

I came to this conclusion after talking with people about it. Numerous people didn't believe it. I had to show people documents and articles for them to believe me. Most of the people I've spoken with do not like this behavior and would rather not use a service or pay for it if they had known.

The average person is unaware. That does not make it ok.

I like that the webshit data robbers downvote me for saying what they're doing is evil, yet if I showed any particular one what kind of information I have access to about them, just as a random private citizen interested in these things, they'd freak out and call me a creep. It's a shame what money does to people.

> yet if I showed any particular one what kind of information I have access to about them

This is where the line is drawn for most - if people from Facebook, Amazon or Google look at information other than machines. Totally fine if it's just a computer with a strong law like GDPR safeguarding it.

People are looking.

Maybe. I'm just saying this is where expectations lie - including my own. Maybe I'm naive, I don't know.

From my conversations with Googlers at least, it does seem they're extremely careful about insider threats.

Not that I'm doubting you, but could you please provide sources?

I will not. This is both common knowledge and common sense.

You can easily find articles about sufficiently low-level drones getting fired from Facebook for snooping if this is an authentic query.

If you have trusted friends in tech, you can ask them even better.

Is what people say is what people actually going to do ?

> The average person is unaware. That does not make it ok.

Any actual data other than anecdotes?

The problem is these services are scams. If people understood what they were doing they wouldn't trade their data for $5/month.

If your business can't survive by charging a fair price for the service it provides without stealing data, then it shouldn't exist.

This statement is too broad brush for me to actually understand where you're coming from. Let's try a few variations of the theme and see if we can suss out why we perceive this so differently. If none of these touch on your perspective, I'd appreciate it if you could propose some of your own.

Please note that these are deliberately constructed as strawmen; I am not advocating for them or saying you do.

1/ Would you approve of a law which forbade companies (perhaps outside of eg healthcare or finance) from collecting or storing PII?

2/ Would you approve of a law which forbade a company which bought or sold PII (perhaps with the above exemptions) from doing any other kind of business?

3/ Would you approve of a law which required companies to explicitly price and purchase PII from consumers?

4/ Would you approve of a law holding employees or executives criminally responsible for data breaches?

5/ Would you approve of a law standardizing the requirements for anonymizing data?

6/ Would you approve of a law banning online advertising?

7/ Would you approve of a law which placed the same requirements on any company which stored PII as are currently imposed on credit agencies?

These all sound fine, except I don't know that credit agencies are held to high standards.

Ok, maybe I'm asking questions too close to my own viewpoint. Let me ask some follow-up questions that are a bit further out.

Would you approve of a law which forbade advertising of any sort?

Would you approve of a law which required service providers to offer their service for free?

Would you approve of a law which forbade service providers from offering their service for free?

Would you approve of a law banning the sale of digital goods or rights to digital goods?

Would you approve of a law banning subscriptions or recurring payments?

Would you approve of a law forbidding the use of cameras in public places?

Would you approve of a law forbidding companies from having more than $X in revenue, for some X?

> Would you approve of a law which forbade advertising of any sort?

No. People are entitled to speech.

> Would you approve of a law which required service providers to offer their service for free?

No. Making money is Virtuous and Good. Acquiring money by theft, deceit, etc is not.

> Would you approve of a law which forbade service providers from offering their service for free?

No. Charity is fine. In the cases people are actually paying with their data and the "free" is just legal trickery then yes. You already can't pay people in blood. Data is just as important.

> Would you approve of a law banning the sale of digital goods or rights to digital goods?

No. However, DRM should be illegal.

> Would you approve of a law banning subscriptions or recurring payments?

No. The only issue here is predatory sign-ons.

> Would you approve of a law forbidding the use of cameras in public places?

This one is difficult. At any earlier time, no.

> Would you approve of a law forbidding companies from having more than $X in revenue, for some X?

No, I wouldn't bother.

> > Would you approve of a law forbidding the use of cameras in public places?

> This one is difficult. At any earlier time, no.

I suspect the best solution here is laws around how the data from public cameras is stored and processed. Cameras that store a temporary loop of data, delete it after a day or two, and don't upload that data to the cloud are one thing. Cameras that upload every image to the cloud for permanent storage where face recognition software is used to track you movement around the city or your emotional state throughout the day are a different beast.

Surveillance cameras could really use a PCI-type compliance regime. Data must be stored encrypted at rest, intranets must be segregated from the broader web, etc. It isn't perfect but it's better than nothing.

Ok, so you would forbid online advertising, but not advertising overall. What would you allow/ban and why (assuming that viewpoint is germane to this conversation)?

I'm not sure what you mean by "at any earlier time". Can you clarify?

You mention predatory sign-ons. In this context it seems you view the data-for-service trade as predatory. Do you think it would remain predatory if it were explicitly priced-- eg, if Google offered you a $5 credit on a $5 service for use of your data?

Would you approve of a law explicitly allowing blood-for-service or similar?