There’s nothing sacred about a business model. There is no right to a business model. Novel business models are risks. It’s surprising to me that there isn’t greater recognition of that. At Bloomberg View Leonid Bershidksy warns:
I think I understand why Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t publicly responded to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He’s stuck in a catch-22. Any fix for Facebook’s previous big problem — fake news — would make the current big problem with data harvesting worse.
As a media company and one of Americans’ top sources of information, Facebook’s de facto anonymity and general lack of responsibility for user-generated content make it easy for propagandists to exploit. Making matters worse, it isn’t willing to impose tighter identification rules for fear of losing too many users, and it doesn’t want to be held responsible in any way for content, preferring to present itself as a neutral platform. So Zuckerberg has been trying to fix the problem by showing people more material from friends and family and by prioritizing “trusted publishers” and local news sources over purveyors of fake news.
I believe that Facebook, Google, Twitter, and any other company whose business model depends on their selling data on the online behavior of their users is doomed. They have a right to their analysis of the data but not to the data itself and there will be an increasing recognition of that.
Enjoy ’em while you can. They won’t be around for long.
I suspect that the business model is more viable than you think. Many people are willing to give up their data, but more importantly, they want the services more than they care about their data.
In the case where a person does care, there is little you can do about it. I can live with no social media, but there are employment situations where I may need them. I do not want anything to do with Dropbox, but sometimes, I am required to use it. My only option is to find a new employer.
You should own your data, but as long as it has little effect on them, few people care about it. Then, there is the problem of what is protected and when it is protected. The present model is that it is sold, and the buyer has full control of it. I would prefer the model that personal data is licensed, but most people would be overwhelmed by the requests for usage.
I wish that people would wake-up, but they probably wish that I would ‘get with the program”.
I have some mixed feelings about this.
– On one hand, I think the “fake news” thing is way overblown. On the other hand, Facebook and Google’s algorithms are a black box.
– The propagandists I know are on my friends’ list. Regular American people share more bullshit than the Russians ever could and they are much better at it.
– I have to use Facebook for work and I enjoy using it keep in touch with friends (and given that we have friends scattered all over, it works very well for us for that). But given my previous profession, I understand the dangers and tradeoffs better than most. I take great pains to ensure my data isn’t on my public profile or accessible to third parties. For similar reasons, I remain pseudonymous on blogs and other online spaces.
“They have a right to their analysis of the data but not to the data itself and there will be an increasing recognition of that.”
I don’t think that’s legally true at present, at least according to the terms of service that users are required to agree to. I would like to see a law passed where people can actually “own” and control their own data whether it is DNA or pictures of their cat. I think these media companies should also be required to be more transparent about when they are collecting and using data. Granted, most people are unaware and click through any TOS or warning messages, but it would be helpful for those of us who don’t.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”
IMO the right to one’s own data is an inherent right. That it is not secured by the law is a defect of the law and IMO temporary. I would add, mischievously, that the more powerful IT companies become the more likely the right is to be recognized and secured.
I certainly hope you are right.
I think Andy is right that at present, the company owns the data, not the person using the service. You may think we should change that, but I don’t think that changes current law.
Will it change? I am less certain than you. I think that an awful lot of people are willfully ignorant and will go back to that as soon as the news is out of the headlines. They just want the convenience. I don’t think there are that many civil libertarians anymore.
Steve