The author suggests we will have mechanisms that allow us to "own" data from smart meters. Never mind that the electric companies will think that they own the d

The author suggests we will have mechanisms that allow us to "own" data from smart meters. Never mind that the electric companies will think that they own the data. The reality is ownership is a concept that really only works for scarce things like physical goods and services. Ultimately, you can't own information, you can only have it or not. To control information is to either make it scarce (like music and movies with copyright and DRM) or to control the actions of the party receiving it with licenses and contracts. Now who is going to win that battle? If you think consumers will, then you have to implement a mechanism to track actions taken on the basis of any information supplied by consumers. Pretty complicated, and consumers will have to feel threatened in order to pay for such things. Either that or ham-handed regulation gets imposed after some horrible information mishap.