to whom does our identifying data belong?
when does the availability of data constitute a right to use it?
when does the availability of data constitute a right to resell it?
what if instead of passively recording our personal information when we buy a product, collection agencies were instead required to purchase that data from us, in some form of micropayment? would we not then have rights to it under the DMCA? what if our data were not their asset to aggregate, analyze, and publish, but instead our property which they are holding in escrow, to be used as we specifically permit, (perhaps even generating royaties for us)?
there are very few technical hurdles to this arrangement other than inertia. just as copyrighted digital media contain tags and code that ostensibly limit the circumstances under which they are used, so can any information we provide about ourselves. the real problem is that the cat is already out of the bag. there are entrenched interests who have already amassed enormous amounts of material which is of immense value to them. privacy is already gone. the ability to enforce personal privacy is already out of the hands of the individual. what we need to do is decide, as a society, if it is a right we wish to claim.
Related Posts:
- increase in value begets increase in sophistication of strategies to capture that value (December, 2005)
- franchisers over enfranchisement (January, 2006)
- Where are They Now? (January, 2008)
- oh hell yeah: new red-blue map (May, 2006)
- how much information content in our elections? (November, 2005)
