You have a really interesting argument against the oft-repeated "If you don't pay, you are the product." I think you are right, that there is great power in ano

You have a really interesting argument against the oft-repeated "If you don't pay, you are the product." I think you are right, that there is great power in anonymized data, but ultimately motives matter. From what I saw as a former scientist, the goodwill of patients donating their tissues formed the foundation of great cancer (and neuroscience, and HIV, and...) research. IBut I think there is a social contract for scientists (and open-source programmers, and nonprofits, and...) that gives them credibility. Maybe it's our human nature to trust them, and for them to trust themselves? But 1)corporations are obliged to care about profit, and 2) anonymized data can be de-anonymized with (to me) astonishing ease. In Data and Goliath Bruce Schneier cites a dozen cases of de-anonymized data, from health records to Netflix history to personal identification.[0] It is possible that I'm just more paranoid than the average GMail user, but this scared the bones out of me. [0] An example on his website: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/reidentifying_a.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/05/reidentifying...