News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech t... by saalweachter on Monday June 22, 2020 @02:10PM (#23603582)
So if the goal is to discourage wide-scale collection of data without making it illegal, or at least to ensure that we benefit collectively from it, there's a much more obvious model, which is taxation. It's much easier to administer, and you end up with real money to do something with, instead of buying everyone a drink. Tax any company collecting, storing and analyzing user data some small amount, say, $1 or $0.1 or $5 per year per user-month of data stored, and use the tax revenues for ... something.

So what would that something be? Is there any obvious way to spend the revenues to further discourage tracking users and storing user data? Or would it be best to just plow it into the education budget or general fund?

Re:Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech t... by SuoDuanDao on Monday June 22, 2020 @05:29PM (#23606963)
Andrew Yang and co. would likely suggest a universal basic income ;)
Re:Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech t... by purplecabbage77 on Monday June 22, 2020 @08:22PM (#23608593)
Isn't that basically the same thing as just having data collecting companies pay users directly?
Re:Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech t... by saalweachter on Monday June 22, 2020 @10:35PM (#23609397)
Yeah, it would end up being the same paltry payment.

I think the correct use did eventually occur to me: turn it into funding for open source software, that is both free as in freedom and free as in beer.