5 ms·

Interesting indeed, it is what several German online newspapers do - they let you choose between a free version with tracking and a paid one without one. I find

• arlcode 5y ago
  Because society decided that it shouldn't be. It's a political decision that charging money (or displaying not personalized ads) is preferably.
  • nickpp 5y ago
    This hurts most people with less money to pay, as they can’t access the service otherwise.
    • sippeangelo 5y ago
      It exploits most people with less money to pay, as they're not privileged enough to access the service otherwise.
      • nickpp 5y ago
        So offering people with no means to pay another way to access the service (in exchange of something quite worthless to them, their "data") is now exploitation?
    • akie 5y ago
      The GDPR has a provision that requires that the same level of access to the service has to be provided regardless of your privacy/tracking choice.
      • nickpp 5y ago
        And my observation points out the logical effects of that provision.
• sdoering 5y ago
  Interesting, because said practice from German news sites seems to have the blessing of the data privacy authorities. Sadly I can't find the source. It must have been one of the data privacy newsletters I receive. So the Norge argument here would go further and I would like to see this challenged to the European Court as this would provide a final verdict. Currently I feel that different countries see these things quite a bit different. On the other hand it would only mean that you can't have a free version refinanced through advertising, but would need to find other ways of converting users into paying customers while still providing a striped down free app for generating reach.
• tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  Why can't organs be considered as a means of payment? Not sarcasm - I think that while it's obviously a different scale, the reasons are similar and boil down to "we don't want that as a society" and "the environment this creates is not conductive to a free and informed rational decision". Many people don't understand the value of their data and the risk it poses, there is an information imbalance, there is a power imbalance (the company sets the terms, and you only get to take it or leave it). The pre-GDPR situation also showed that the market doesn't really work, because everyone was collecting your data, people have limited energy and incentive to care because it doesn't cause immediately visible pain. It's similar to workplace safety - we don't allow employers to create easily avoidable dangerous situation in exchange for extra pay either, for similar reasons. Most importantly, data grabbing is not necessary for advertising, it's just slightly more profitable and thus everyone does it, eventually pushing the "good" (privacy-friendly) players out of the market. If we want to change that, we need a de-facto ban (which a properly implemented GDPR would be, because so many people will click "No" if given a truly free choice that showing the popup won't be worth it).
  • nickpp 5y ago
    Are you implying that my online data is as important to me as an actual organ?! Because it certainly doesn’t feel that way.
    • tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
      No, and I explicitly stated "while it's obviously a different scale".
      • nickpp 5y ago
        So, since you brought human organs in a discussion about data, what are you comparing it to then, on its scale? A toenail? An eyelash? Some dead skin? What is of such great importance and I can’t be allowed to exchange it at any price and I can’t be trusted to make this decision myself?
    • jsjsbdkj 5y ago
• belorn 5y ago
  > Why can't data be considered as a means of payment in this case? One of the biggest reason would be that using data as payment has demonstrated to push out companies that don't want to collect data. Data as a mean of payment is less clear to the consumer about the costs, and there is no real good way to inform the public outside of an massive investment into the general education that focus on privacy, data laws, how data is gathered, why it is gathered, how it get traded and used, and what the outcomes are. The value added through data is also not taxed which creates an unfair advantage compared to other payment methods.
  • nickpp 5y ago
    It’s quite amazing that something most people see quite worthless ("my data") is suddenly seen by the society as priceless (since I can’t buy it with money).
• cjfd 5y ago
  The 'data is payment' thing sounds terrible. What if it really goes south and this data is involved in some identity theft? Then the criminal justice system needs to get involved at enormous cost to tax payers. Therefore, there actually is an interest of the state that all this data should not be roaming around freely.