What To Do About Facebook

In an op-ed in the New York Times academic Zeynep Tufekci wonders why the Congress wants to interview Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at all, suggesting instead that the members of Congress do the unthinkable and actually enact legislation:

What would a genuine legislative remedy look like? First, personalized data collection would be allowed only through opt-in mechanisms that were clear, concise and transparent. There would be no more endless pages of legalese that nobody reads or can easily understand. The same would be true of any individualized targeting of users by companies or political campaigns — it should be clear, transparent and truly consensual.

Second, people would have access, if requested, to all the data a company has collected on them — including all forms of computational inference (how the company uses your data to make guesses about your tastes and preferences, your personal and medical history, your political allegiances and so forth).

Third, the use of any data collected would be limited to specifically enumerated purposes, for a designed period of time — and then would expire. The current model of harvesting all data, with virtually no limit on how it is used and for how long, must stop.

Fourth, the aggregate use of data should be regulated. Merely saying that individuals own their data isn’t enough: Companies can and will persuade people to part with their data in ways that may seem to make sense at the individual level but that work at the aggregate level to create public harms. For example, collecting health information from individuals in return for a small compensation might seem beneficial to both parties — but a company that holds health information on a billion people can end up posing a threat to individuals in ways they could not have foreseen.

While I think those measures would be a good start, I don’t think they go nearly far enough. In answer to the retort that such restrictions would destroy Facebook, I’d answer so what? Nobody has a right to a business model and particularly not to a business model of selling something you don’t own.

And, the preferences of anarcho-capitalists notwithstanding, there are some things you just cannot contract to do or, at least, for which binding contracts cannot be written. Sale of the data gathered about your online behavior might well be one of them.

However, let me assuage Dr. Tufekci’s concerns. The reason that Congress will be browbeating Mark Zuckerberg is not as a prelude to doing something about Facebook’s bad behavior but as an alternative to action. They will appear to be tough while actually being marshmallows.