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Showing posts from April, 2021

Collective Action - A User's Right to Get Paid!

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Users have been coerced to give up their private data rights in exchange for platform services like search engines, social networks and web sites. Being coerced may not seem too perverse, but the collective value of each users data is now the basis for several trillion dollars in corporate and shareholder valuations, with no financial benefit accruing to owners of that data.  Historically household data was aggregated by services like Nielsen. Contracts were entered with families who were paid to provide psycho-demographic information and media viewing habits over weeks, months and years. From the 1950's that data was purchased and analyzed to shape the massive industry that television became, but web-site terms and conditions changed the payment model for use of an individuals private data.   So, why should users continue to be singled out and exploited when platform services are being commoditized and the value of private data, in exchange for these services is no longer as entic