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It's been a while since I disagreed this much with a privacy-related article. It's a good reminder to me that the privacy community is reasonably diverse, and t

It's been a while since I disagreed this much with a privacy-related article. It's a good reminder to me that the privacy community is reasonably diverse, and that different people can advocate for the same policies for very different reasons. I advocate for privacy a lot, but my end goal definitely isn't data ownership. If anything, I'd like to see IP protections start to go in the opposite direction. I'm not against the idea of copyright as a purely practical invention, but I certainly don't believe anyone has an intrinsic moral right to a monopoly on creative or factual information. So I take some issue with the idea that privacy is just a gateway to something else. To me, privacy and anonymity are the end goal. There's not a secondary, deeper issue behind that. I'm not mad that Facebook is making money off of my information, I'm mad that they were able to get it in the first place. This is important, because when you transition to talking about data ownership as the underlying problem, then you start to lose ground on questions like, "why is it important that the government not be able to track my GPS location anytime they like? What was really wrong with programs like PRISM?" Because Government privacy concerns don't really have anything to do with data ownership.

williesleg 8y ago
Where do you live?
stdcli 8y ago
It is true that privacy and data ownership are two separate ideas that are often conflated. I think the user having more control over what happens to their data, empowers them to decide who has access to what, and where they choose to host their data. For gaia hubs, we enable users to host their own data wherever they choose, revoke access to apps writing to their data, to delete data, or keep it and render it to another application whitelisted to interact with their data. A work in progress, but I feel confident Blockstack is on the forefront of pushing this idea of data ownership, while also enabling an authentication protocol that associates an immutable identity with gaia hubs, to enable data privacy as well. The immutable identity being anonymous is debatable depending on how the user chooses to identify themselves, but the authentication protocol enables app developers to choose whether to implement end to end encryption, as some cases might not be needed. The reality is there is a catch22 associated with (someone elses comment) the "simple" solution which is to throw everything on a local hard drive. How do you share data with people care about, or companies you do business with dynamically with high and real time performance this way? We are trying to answer those questions at Blockstack with gaia hubs: https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html But I would honestly love to see other ideas similar and learn more about the eco system of people approach data ownership, where data ownership enables users to decide what they want to be private, or not.
- Liquix 8y ago
  I think the root issue goes back to your second sentence: the average user doesn't want to be empowered when it comes to data harvesting. In fact, the average user would probably be firmly set against it. They have nothing to hide, no complaints about the current system, and see no value in having control over their data. Perhaps even negative value in taking time out of their busy schedule to manage it. The trick to turning the tide in the data privacy battle won't be finding the right argument or implementing the right policy - it'll be finding a way to communicate the magnitude and potential impact of this problem to the masses before it's too late.
  - stdcli 8y ago
    "the average user doesn't want to be empowered when it comes to data harvesting" I think this is an extremely presumptuous statement that writes off how little empowerement the average user has by conflating the ignorance about data privacy and ownership, and the lack of user friendly options they have around understanding their data and how it can be owned/migrated and who has access to what, with carelessness or otherwise now in tech known as "consent" or "accept and agree with the fineprint or don't use this platform required for work, modern day life, etc" or "allow this app that is in no way shape or form related to pictures, social networks or social communication access to your pictures, phonecalls, all stored data on your phone and access to your contact otherwise don't download" I think the news shows it's pretty clear most people are not happy about how companies like facebook and others are using it, now that they know. They have not known for a while, and furthermore what alternatives do they have? This idea is very similar to telling a person because they never knew this was being done to them, and that because also in addition they have no other options currently if they do know about it, that this equates to consent or carelessness/lack of wanting to be empowered. This is just false, and furthermore, a dangerous trajectory of thought to apply to any situation.
- ibeckermayer 8y ago
  Are you guys hiring junior devs? This looks like one of the few sane applications of blockchain technology that actually would make the world a better place...
icebraining 8y ago
I'm also not a fan of the profit viewpoint, but part of the concept of property is definitively having the right to exclude people from it. In fact, that's already being used for data protection: they must get a warrant to get data from your phone, but not from an FB account, because the servers are not your property. And this applies to copyright as well - for example, without it, Bill Watterson wouldn't have been able to stop companies from using Calvin & Hobbes on their ads and other marketing crap. The GPL is also an example of it being used to exclude certain uses of it, rather than profiting from it.
- naringas 8y ago
  >having the right to exclude people from it. but that becomes near impossible with digital information. just try removing something from the internet right now I belive that the entire internet is changing so that this becomes every more feasible and I don't think that this is a good thing. I think that if I have some data in my computer nobody (not even entities claiming to "own" or "have created" such data) should have the right to force me to delete said data. Just as an example imagine the information is not really digital data but something you have learned. Should anybody have the right to force you to forget something because it is "theirs"!?
  - drewmol 8y ago
    I was going to respond to parent but you brought up the point I was going to bring attention to: requiring anyone to forget/destroy/not disseminate information is an infringement on their liberty. While I understand that we do have laws that attempt to stop the intentional, public dissemination of false information, I think the focus (in relation to privacy) should be more on creating an environment where people can choose to prevent the release of that information in the first place and less on restricting what it can he used for.
protonimitate 8y ago
I agree with you. To me the biggest issue with advocating for data ownership is that it puts the burden of privacy back on the user. I.e., I shouldn't have to micromanage my data-foot-print and give or deny explicit access. That just opens the doors for a barrage of requests levied against the average Joe user with lots of room for "accidental" approvals (similar to the "this site uses cookies" popups). Privacy should not be a chore that the user is tasked with performing every day. Privacy should be implicit and extensive. >Because Government privacy concerns don't really have anything to do with data ownership. Could you expand on this? I want to agree here too, but I don't think I fully understand what you're getting at.
- danShumway 8y ago
  Anything is probably too strong a word for me to use here. There's almost certainly some overlap with stuff like the 4th Amendment. But while you probably could use property rights as an alternative way to get at some government abuse, you've changed the overall nature of your argument. TLDR, privacy is something that's intrinsic to you as a person, and property is something external that you just happen to have right now. The typical arguments that are used to defend property rights (including the arguments that OP uses in this article) are largely centered around economic harm. In longer conversations this usually ends up being even worse than OP's apple example because the most direct analogy that gets brought up when discussing information ownership is copyright, which has a concept of fair use. A pretty large component of nearly all existing IP systems is that there is a somewhat tangible value to information, and when someone takes your information they are taking that potential value away from you. And OP is probably right, if you tell an average person that Google is stealing from them, you will get a bigger reaction than if you tell them that Google is violating their privacy. But privacy as I view it is not about economic harm, or even about my right to control how a piece of information gets used. Privacy is, very roughly, about my right to hide. Right or wrong, if you go to an average person on the street (or even an average Congressperson) and tell them that putting all of your phone call metadata in a database violates your property rights, they're going to somewhat reasonably say, "that doesn't effect your potential market. It's not really harming you or preventing you from exercising your property rights. And if it ever does harm you for some reason, then you can argue it in court then." But when I talk about PRISM in terms of privacy instead of property, the arguments I make are more direct. Violating someone's privacy has an observable chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of association regardless of whether or not future action is taken. In the US, we already have Supreme Court precedent on the books that a right to anonymity is often an essential part of exercising freedom of speech. We don't have any similar precedent that I'm aware of around IP or even general property rights. Property rights additionally lead to undesirable questions like, "can the government tax your information?", or "if the government really wants your information, can it use eminent domain to seize it?", or "If you die, and no one inherits your information, can the government take it then?"
ummonk 8y ago
There is a rather odd overlap between people who advocate for data ownership and people who dislike intellectual property enforcement.
- dorgo 8y ago
  why? If I own my data then nobody else has access to it. Therefore nothing needs to be enforced.. Maybe I don't understand something here.
  - rini17 8y ago
    That's true only if "I own my data" means all the data are kept on devices exclusively controlled by me. This is not the case at all for our personal information. Nor do most hardware allow for complete control.
dredmorbius 8y ago
Content-meant-as-public and content-meant-among-a-limited-group (friends, family, work, interests) are distinct sets. Not all words are meant for all ears, and so long as the intent and/or impacts fall within socially benign grounds, this is a fair starting point. Privacy is a much misunderstood and vaguely-defined notion, even among experts. I'll suggest that it is an emergent response to ever more effective and intrusive informational regimes, and consists fundamentally as the ability to both define and enforce limitations on information disclosure. Much conflict emerges when information-made-public (literally: published) is asserted as under private control, or when information-meant-private is forced into public (or at least more widespread) view.
specialist 8y ago
My data is me. If someone's using my data, I want my cut. If I deny the use of my data (opt-out, right to be forgotten), I need a way to enforce that. Recognizing personal copyright to one's data is a convenient accounting (bookkeeping) method to implement privacy. -- I'm not smart enough to follow OP Keith Axline's thesis. But it seems to me he has the cart before the horse.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  You are getting a cut of it, in the form of the voluntary usage of a free service. That's voluntary barter, you're trading your data for usage of a service and is perfectly fine. If your point is "I want my cut in money", then you need to find someone who's willing to give you a cut in money. > If I deny the use of my data (opt-out, right to be forgotten), I need a way to enforce that. But that's easy to do: don't provide your data. Your argument seems to be more like "bartering access for data should be illegal" or "it should be illegal to offer a free, ad-funded online service without offering the same service without any ads or tracking by the price that I want, a shrubbery, a nice one, not too expensive". It isn't wrong, but it is a different argument. PS: Sorry for the shrubbery joke, wasn't meant to ridicule anyone but myself :)
  - specialist 8y ago
    "voluntary usage of a free service" Phone company sells my location data. My purchases are data minded. "don't provide your data" How would that work?
    - ucaetano 8y ago
      > How would that work? Don't use Facebook. Phone companies use a constrained, public resource (spectrum). Facebook doesn't.
thatoneuser 8y ago
Why does Facebook own your identity and personhood just because they monopolize the social network? Clearly if you don't own your data then these entities will abuse any intent of law or ethics as long as they can circumvent the law (or you know just come up with a new edge case). The model of letting other entities molest your private data has been tried. It's been a human rights violation from the get go. I don't think we need more propaganda supporting the poor little tech giants. They can come up with a humanistic business model like everyone else. Even if it hurts their profits - idgaf.
kaxline 8y ago
Good points, thanks for reading even though you disagree. In my mind data ownership makes the arguments against those questions stronger. They can't track your location because you didn't give them permission. Right now we have the situation where they do track your location, or could if they wanted to, with no real legal fallout. If they were clearly stealing this data in the eyes of the law, that would give more teeth in court. And it would give standing to those outside of existing cases to bring law suits based purely on this theft. It would be like if the FBI used your house to spy on your neighbors without telling you. The idea that you could prevent them from collecting it in the first place is perhaps an ideal I agree with, but I can't see how that would happen. Even the most tech savvy people leak data left and right. And it's easier and easier to infer insights from less and less data. This might be more of a reality on a decentralized web, but isn't it a waste to just throw away that data that you're keeping from potential spies? Why not at least be given the chance to monetize it if you so choose. And about keeping stuff from Facebook. People obviously want to use social networks, probably with varying degrees of openness and sharing. Shouldn't they be able to use a service like that knowing that if anyone uses their data, it's akin to property theft? Enforcement is another issue, but if we're talking about ideals, I think privacy is a subset of data ownership, and in the form I'm thinking of it, it would only add value to any of privacy's goals, not take away.
rellekio 8y ago
Disagree, as the main issue is prepping and cleaning bad data. It's a massive time sink and a waste of resources. Data ownership done right is a beneficial relationship for the farmer and the farmed

williesleg 8y ago

Where do you live?

stdcli 8y ago

It is true that privacy and data ownership are two separate ideas that are often conflated. I think the user having more control over what happens to their data, empowers them to decide who has access to what, and where they choose to host their data. For gaia hubs, we enable users to host their own data wherever they choose, revoke access to apps writing to their data, to delete data, or keep it and render it to another application whitelisted to interact with their data. A work in progress, but I feel confident Blockstack is on the forefront of pushing this idea of data ownership, while also enabling an authentication protocol that associates an immutable identity with gaia hubs, to enable data privacy as well. The immutable identity being anonymous is debatable depending on how the user chooses to identify themselves, but the authentication protocol enables app developers to choose whether to implement end to end encryption, as some cases might not be needed. The reality is there is a catch22 associated with (someone elses comment) the "simple" solution which is to throw everything on a local hard drive. How do you share data with people care about, or companies you do business with dynamically with high and real time performance this way? We are trying to answer those questions at Blockstack with gaia hubs: https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html But I would honestly love to see other ideas similar and learn more about the eco system of people approach data ownership, where data ownership enables users to decide what they want to be private, or not.

Liquix 8y ago
I think the root issue goes back to your second sentence: the average user doesn't want to be empowered when it comes to data harvesting. In fact, the average user would probably be firmly set against it. They have nothing to hide, no complaints about the current system, and see no value in having control over their data. Perhaps even negative value in taking time out of their busy schedule to manage it. The trick to turning the tide in the data privacy battle won't be finding the right argument or implementing the right policy - it'll be finding a way to communicate the magnitude and potential impact of this problem to the masses before it's too late.
- stdcli 8y ago
  "the average user doesn't want to be empowered when it comes to data harvesting" I think this is an extremely presumptuous statement that writes off how little empowerement the average user has by conflating the ignorance about data privacy and ownership, and the lack of user friendly options they have around understanding their data and how it can be owned/migrated and who has access to what, with carelessness or otherwise now in tech known as "consent" or "accept and agree with the fineprint or don't use this platform required for work, modern day life, etc" or "allow this app that is in no way shape or form related to pictures, social networks or social communication access to your pictures, phonecalls, all stored data on your phone and access to your contact otherwise don't download" I think the news shows it's pretty clear most people are not happy about how companies like facebook and others are using it, now that they know. They have not known for a while, and furthermore what alternatives do they have? This idea is very similar to telling a person because they never knew this was being done to them, and that because also in addition they have no other options currently if they do know about it, that this equates to consent or carelessness/lack of wanting to be empowered. This is just false, and furthermore, a dangerous trajectory of thought to apply to any situation.
ibeckermayer 8y ago
Are you guys hiring junior devs? This looks like one of the few sane applications of blockchain technology that actually would make the world a better place...

icebraining 8y ago

I'm also not a fan of the profit viewpoint, but part of the concept of property is definitively having the right to exclude people from it. In fact, that's already being used for data protection: they must get a warrant to get data from your phone, but not from an FB account, because the servers are not your property. And this applies to copyright as well - for example, without it, Bill Watterson wouldn't have been able to stop companies from using Calvin & Hobbes on their ads and other marketing crap. The GPL is also an example of it being used to exclude certain uses of it, rather than profiting from it.

naringas 8y ago
>having the right to exclude people from it. but that becomes near impossible with digital information. just try removing something from the internet right now I belive that the entire internet is changing so that this becomes every more feasible and I don't think that this is a good thing. I think that if I have some data in my computer nobody (not even entities claiming to "own" or "have created" such data) should have the right to force me to delete said data. Just as an example imagine the information is not really digital data but something you have learned. Should anybody have the right to force you to forget something because it is "theirs"!?
- drewmol 8y ago
  I was going to respond to parent but you brought up the point I was going to bring attention to: requiring anyone to forget/destroy/not disseminate information is an infringement on their liberty. While I understand that we do have laws that attempt to stop the intentional, public dissemination of false information, I think the focus (in relation to privacy) should be more on creating an environment where people can choose to prevent the release of that information in the first place and less on restricting what it can he used for.

protonimitate 8y ago

I agree with you. To me the biggest issue with advocating for data ownership is that it puts the burden of privacy back on the user. I.e., I shouldn't have to micromanage my data-foot-print and give or deny explicit access. That just opens the doors for a barrage of requests levied against the average Joe user with lots of room for "accidental" approvals (similar to the "this site uses cookies" popups). Privacy should not be a chore that the user is tasked with performing every day. Privacy should be implicit and extensive. >Because Government privacy concerns don't really have anything to do with data ownership. Could you expand on this? I want to agree here too, but I don't think I fully understand what you're getting at.

danShumway 8y ago
Anything is probably too strong a word for me to use here. There's almost certainly some overlap with stuff like the 4th Amendment. But while you probably could use property rights as an alternative way to get at some government abuse, you've changed the overall nature of your argument. TLDR, privacy is something that's intrinsic to you as a person, and property is something external that you just happen to have right now. The typical arguments that are used to defend property rights (including the arguments that OP uses in this article) are largely centered around economic harm. In longer conversations this usually ends up being even worse than OP's apple example because the most direct analogy that gets brought up when discussing information ownership is copyright, which has a concept of fair use. A pretty large component of nearly all existing IP systems is that there is a somewhat tangible value to information, and when someone takes your information they are taking that potential value away from you. And OP is probably right, if you tell an average person that Google is stealing from them, you will get a bigger reaction than if you tell them that Google is violating their privacy. But privacy as I view it is not about economic harm, or even about my right to control how a piece of information gets used. Privacy is, very roughly, about my right to hide. Right or wrong, if you go to an average person on the street (or even an average Congressperson) and tell them that putting all of your phone call metadata in a database violates your property rights, they're going to somewhat reasonably say, "that doesn't effect your potential market. It's not really harming you or preventing you from exercising your property rights. And if it ever does harm you for some reason, then you can argue it in court then." But when I talk about PRISM in terms of privacy instead of property, the arguments I make are more direct. Violating someone's privacy has an observable chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of association regardless of whether or not future action is taken. In the US, we already have Supreme Court precedent on the books that a right to anonymity is often an essential part of exercising freedom of speech. We don't have any similar precedent that I'm aware of around IP or even general property rights. Property rights additionally lead to undesirable questions like, "can the government tax your information?", or "if the government really wants your information, can it use eminent domain to seize it?", or "If you die, and no one inherits your information, can the government take it then?"

ummonk 8y ago

There is a rather odd overlap between people who advocate for data ownership and people who dislike intellectual property enforcement.

dorgo 8y ago
why? If I own my data then nobody else has access to it. Therefore nothing needs to be enforced.. Maybe I don't understand something here.
- rini17 8y ago
  That's true only if "I own my data" means all the data are kept on devices exclusively controlled by me. This is not the case at all for our personal information. Nor do most hardware allow for complete control.

dredmorbius 8y ago

Content-meant-as-public and content-meant-among-a-limited-group (friends, family, work, interests) are distinct sets. Not all words are meant for all ears, and so long as the intent and/or impacts fall within socially benign grounds, this is a fair starting point. Privacy is a much misunderstood and vaguely-defined notion, even among experts. I'll suggest that it is an emergent response to ever more effective and intrusive informational regimes, and consists fundamentally as the ability to both define and enforce limitations on information disclosure. Much conflict emerges when information-made-public (literally: published) is asserted as under private control, or when information-meant-private is forced into public (or at least more widespread) view.

specialist 8y ago

My data is me. If someone's using my data, I want my cut. If I deny the use of my data (opt-out, right to be forgotten), I need a way to enforce that. Recognizing personal copyright to one's data is a convenient accounting (bookkeeping) method to implement privacy. -- I'm not smart enough to follow OP Keith Axline's thesis. But it seems to me he has the cart before the horse.

ucaetano 8y ago
You are getting a cut of it, in the form of the voluntary usage of a free service. That's voluntary barter, you're trading your data for usage of a service and is perfectly fine. If your point is "I want my cut in money", then you need to find someone who's willing to give you a cut in money. > If I deny the use of my data (opt-out, right to be forgotten), I need a way to enforce that. But that's easy to do: don't provide your data. Your argument seems to be more like "bartering access for data should be illegal" or "it should be illegal to offer a free, ad-funded online service without offering the same service without any ads or tracking by the price that I want, a shrubbery, a nice one, not too expensive". It isn't wrong, but it is a different argument. PS: Sorry for the shrubbery joke, wasn't meant to ridicule anyone but myself :)
- specialist 8y ago
  "voluntary usage of a free service" Phone company sells my location data. My purchases are data minded. "don't provide your data" How would that work?
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    > How would that work? Don't use Facebook. Phone companies use a constrained, public resource (spectrum). Facebook doesn't.

thatoneuser 8y ago

Why does Facebook own your identity and personhood just because they monopolize the social network? Clearly if you don't own your data then these entities will abuse any intent of law or ethics as long as they can circumvent the law (or you know just come up with a new edge case). The model of letting other entities molest your private data has been tried. It's been a human rights violation from the get go. I don't think we need more propaganda supporting the poor little tech giants. They can come up with a humanistic business model like everyone else. Even if it hurts their profits - idgaf.

kaxline 8y ago

Good points, thanks for reading even though you disagree. In my mind data ownership makes the arguments against those questions stronger. They can't track your location because you didn't give them permission. Right now we have the situation where they do track your location, or could if they wanted to, with no real legal fallout. If they were clearly stealing this data in the eyes of the law, that would give more teeth in court. And it would give standing to those outside of existing cases to bring law suits based purely on this theft. It would be like if the FBI used your house to spy on your neighbors without telling you. The idea that you could prevent them from collecting it in the first place is perhaps an ideal I agree with, but I can't see how that would happen. Even the most tech savvy people leak data left and right. And it's easier and easier to infer insights from less and less data. This might be more of a reality on a decentralized web, but isn't it a waste to just throw away that data that you're keeping from potential spies? Why not at least be given the chance to monetize it if you so choose. And about keeping stuff from Facebook. People obviously want to use social networks, probably with varying degrees of openness and sharing. Shouldn't they be able to use a service like that knowing that if anyone uses their data, it's akin to property theft? Enforcement is another issue, but if we're talking about ideals, I think privacy is a subset of data ownership, and in the form I'm thinking of it, it would only add value to any of privacy's goals, not take away.

rellekio 8y ago

Disagree, as the main issue is prepping and cleaning bad data. It's a massive time sink and a waste of resources. Data ownership done right is a beneficial relationship for the farmer and the farmed