Should you sell your digital soul?
Companies make billions off of our data — but what if we got a cut?
In our digital age, personal data is the new gold. Aggregated, it predicts trends, perfects algorithms and drives the mind-boggling $455.3 billion market for digital ads. Websites track each click to analyze and then monetize users’ preferences. Some wonder if consumers are in fact the product.
Yet users often have little knowledge of — much less control over — what data they give up. Terms of use and privacy policies are long and convoluted, while the ubiquity of social media and the internet creates a sort of monopoly that strips customers of any bargaining power. Tech companies have been reckless with how they use the data too, from the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal to mass data leaks and privacy breaches.
All of this makes startups that offer users a way to monetize their own personal data sound extra attractive. For example, the browser Brave pays users 70% of the revenue it makes from ads they see via a rewards program users can redeem for currency. Another startup, Reklaim, emphasizes “taking back control of your identity.” As a data broker of sorts, it lets users decide if they want Reklaim to sell data on their behalf. The more information you fill on your profile, the fatter the weekly cheques.
“Big tech profits off of your data big time, and we want you to get a well-deserved cut,” Reklaim’s website reads. “After all, it is YOUR data.”
The narrative of empowerment is attractive, especially as some are arguing that we live in a society run by exploitative surveillance capitalism where corporations claim rights to and profit off our digital souls. Tech giants know way more about us than we know about them — maybe it’s time to remediate the power imbalance.
If the business model of consumers selling their own data becomes widespread, it may accelerate innovation. It could help companies outside of big tech gain wider access to user data by purchasing from more focused target groups for testing, for example. The whole concept also seems like an easy way to earn passive income — just fill out some forms about yourself, no special skills required.
But when people already give up their personal information on a daily basis by using social media and such, financial incentives to provide even more data might swing the other way. It could further normalize signing away privacy agreements without a second thought. And when a payment mechanism is attached to that culture, companies could bargain for even more personal info.
Still, having the choice to sell feels better than the status quo, where our data is just taken from us for free, you insist. Let the forces of supply and demand drive themselves.
Perhaps. But unless you’re famous, a single person’s data isn’t worth much by itself. Data needs to be aggregated and analyzed to have any sense made out of them, so collectors are the ones setting the value. It will be hard for consumers to get a good deal for what they’re selling because they wouldn’t be able to dictate how much their data is worth.
There are also practical difficulties in its execution. Most consumers don’t have the time, energy or expertise to navigate all the legal issues that come with having property rights of sorts on their own data. Companies would be wasting a lot of time on the same thing, especially when websites are so connected — each Amazon purchase must go through Visa.com. And when all of us have grown so accustomed to the model we have right now, where big tech companies harvest truckloads of data off of us, how would this new ownership model take off?
The irony of startups claiming to put control of data back in users’ hands advertising on social media!
Maybe there is some solution to be found in data storage systems using blockchain, copyright collectives or whatnot. Or maybe customers should not be selling their own data, but instead be protected by more robust individual rights-based regulations such as the European Union’s GDPR.
In any case, technology companies have a tremendous and disturbing amount of data on all of us. Empowering people to sell their own data might not be the best solution, but the idea is that there are alternatives to the way things are now with data privacy.
