> use their privacy as a currency for "free" stuff There are other currencies. Some of these get mixed up with privacy. Time is a common currency. Flat pack f

> use their privacy as a currency for "free" stuff There are other currencies. Some of these get mixed up with privacy. Time is a common currency. Flat pack furniture is subsidised by passing the assembly costs to the end user - mostly as time. Reputation, image or likeness is a way to pay. Remember the hairdresser with a window full of free modelling service photographs of smiling clients with great hair? Endorsement is another way to pay with "freelance marketing". Cosmetic and kitchen products (tupperware) often had elaborate endorsement chains or pyramid schemes. Knowledge has long been a "hidden" currency in Free software like Linux. You need to know what you're doing. In all cases some friction arises when the customer doesn't know in advance that payment in one or more "hidden" currencies is required. The vendors mistake is to try hiding it in order to advertise a product as "free". Announcing it up front is actually better, otherwise the customer reacts by seeing the sale as a scam of some kind. Loss of privacy is a just one particularly egregious type of hidden currency scam. It's high time it should be treated by customers and regulators exactly the same as other explicit extractions.