[liberationtech] FT: Companies scramble for consumer data (personal data are so cheap... why bother to protect them)

Sat Jun 15 09:54:49 PDT 2013

Great quote, many thanks Alonso de Gregorio:

"it's the surveyed who are capitalizing the system and providing much
of its labor"

And yes, I believe creating such a creative commons system/database as
suggested by Ale Fernández would drive the value of all those data
mining companies to where it belongs: zero. Especially given that
those companies typically use open source software like hadoop et al,
and just compile information freely available on the Internet.
Best Regards | Cordiales Saludos | Grato,

Andrés L. Pacheco Sanfuentes
<alps at acm.org>
+1 (817) 271-9619

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 10:24 AM, ale fernandez <skoria at gmail.com> wrote:
> With all this talk of how snooping agencies and companies are trading people's data, wouldn't a citizen aggregated and voluntary free / creative commons database or similar be of value - perhaps at least as a way of reducing the value of all these data mining companies?
>
> Ale
>
> On Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:17:18 +0400
> Alfonso De Gregorio <adg at crypto.lo.gy> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 10:48 PM, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu> wrote:
>> > From: Toon Vanagt <toon.vanagt at casius.com>
>> >
>> > I stumbled on this FT article with 'volume pricing' for personal data and a convenient estimation tool:
>> > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f0b6edc0-d342-11e2-b3ff-00144feab7de.html#axzz2W5QWgUuR
>> >
>> > Basically, if you're a millionaire, your personal data is worth about $ 0.123 (if you're not, you start at: $ 0.007).
>> >
>> > The FT has build an interactive data value estimation tool. For example by adding ADHD to my profile I gained a stunning $ 0.200. Consider it extra money for 'salting data set' :)
>> ...
>> > Prices in the article & calculator seem very low and suggest that your 'personal data' are not really valuable to companies in a consumer society  That is if you're not obese, don't subscribe to a gym, don't own a plane... Due to competition the broker prices are said to trending towards 'worthless'.. Data brokers seem to suggest we should not bother to protect something of so little economic value...
>> >
>> > Let me know if my reading between the lines is wrong.
>>
>> When the number of market players is large, "competition only exerts
>> weak pressure on prices" [1]. The reality is that in the today's
>> information economy the price paid for raw material (i.e., personal
>> data) is almost zero, because "it's the surveilled who are
>> capitalizing the system and providing much of its labor" [2]. As
>> remarked by Lanier, "budgets create moderation" [3] and retaining
>> control over our personal data would drive the prices up.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Alfonso
>>
>>
>> [1] Gabaix X., Laibson D., Li D., Li H., Resnick S., de Vries C. G.,
>> "The Impact of Competition on Prices with Numerous Firms", Technical
>> Report,  http://ideas.repec.org/p/chu/wpaper/13-07.html
>> [2] Geer Jr. D. E., "Identity as Privacy", IEEE Security & Privacy,
>> Jan.-Feb. 2013, p. 96,
>> http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6427817
>> [3] Lanier J., "Sell your data to save the economy and your future",
>> BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22658152
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