Comment by vannevar
11 hours ago
Every corporation is trying to spy on you. Why wouldn't they? There is no real punishment, and large reward. As long as that is true, superficial regulations around tracking will always be circumvented or hollowed out. We need fundamental change in the way corporations interact with society, and in what is expected of them.
Everyone saying everything other than "Consumers are going to need to be willing to spend more money for things, and people with less money are going to be hit the hardest as they benefit the most from the data economy."
Data has value is flatly true statement. So at best we can have system where you can keep your data and pay more, or sell your data and pay less. The rub here though is that the people who have the means to keep their data, also have the most valuable data, and in our current system subsidize the cost of people with less valuable data, who happen to be the people who would want the most to sell their data.
All of that is to say, the solution is not cut and dry.
Those that can race tot he bottom and get away with it are usually the ones the have a better chance of survival. I don't like it one bit but that is a good summary of business nowadays.
My bank somehow isn't selling my transaction data to the highest bidder though.
Yes they do, and hedge funds buy it so they have consumer spending data before the rest of the market does.
Your bank is very likely doing just that. They even send you a notice about it every year.
You sure about that? Visa/Mastercars certainly are selling at least aggregated data if not more.
This is the long tail of monopoly and cartel power. We need a fundamental change in the _size_ of corporations. They're otherwise too big to regulate and changing expectations will achieve nothing.
The time to do this was 30 years ago. While today we need it more than ever, it is probably already too late: corporations will find those trying to do this and stop them.
Indeed. It started with intercepting letters and couriers, then storing phone calls, radio communications, operating labs to build DNA databases from blood samples, and now large-scale data collection for AI.
Archives tie Epstein and Maxwell individually to various companies in those areas, and a truckload of familiar family names show up along them. My assessment is that people like Thiel and Musk are not self-made, they are intelligence nepo children leveraging aristocratic/colonial offshore wealth of their families.
What is better than being rich and above the law due to your role in intelligence?
Don't forget Bill Gates. People generally don't know he's heir of one of the richest banking families in Washington state.
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