Our personal information: another way to approach the assault on privacy

[Le Jacquelope]

What would be wrong with forcing corporations to pay each person a micro-royalty every time their (arbitrarily defined?) personal information is traded around?

Let's do a DMCA on personal information. Take SSNs, phone numbers, financial information, utility records, and certainly names and addresses, out of the public domain, and make it all the personal property of the citizen in question.

Then make it so the citizen can approve or deny (or even use a whitelist to approve certain companies) any trafficking in their personal information.

Then said trafficking must be compensated.

Like so.

Every time a marketer gets your phone number, bing... a royalty payment.

Every time Choicepoint coughs up information about you... cha ching. Royalty payment.

Every time someone does one of these studies that involves looking at your financial information? Bing. Royalty payment.

Every time a credit card company gets your name and address? Bing. Royalty payment.

Everyone I talk to seems to love this idea.

What horrible politically incorrect effect would this have upon those poor, put upon and helpless corporations, that we shouldn't do it?

 

[Liar]

Interresting idea. But I think it can be made to happen whithout the element of force. With the right incentive and a little help along the way, it sounds like good business. As I assume this system would be financed by a part of the royalties you talk about (a thing like that needs maintenance), it could result in a big, reliable and commersially very useful resource for household advertising. From people who have said yes to having their info used this way, no less.

Databases for opt-in advertising is nothing new. In fact, I've seen systems kind of like this. I don't know the US situation, but there are places and situations in some european countries, where opt-out registering of personal info for commersial (or political) interrests is illegal.

What horrible politically incorrect effect would this have upon those poor, put upon and helpless corporations, that we shouldn't do it?

Do you weigh the worth of the adress or phone number to the customer (the company)? Does everyone pay the same per adress? Or does it have to do with the purpose of the purchace?

Bottom line is, obtaining this kind of info for a company will become more expensive than today. Won't that favor Big Corp over Mom n Pop?

The only other problem I foresee is that managing micropayments from tens of thousands of companies, to millions of citizens, might cost more than what is reasonable to charge.

 

[impressive]

Enforcement would be a bitch. Joe Citizen is not gonna hire a lawyer to chase down a leak. It'd have to be a class action.

The only way I can see to make it feasible is to have a clearinghouse, of sorts. Folks register. Deposit the information they're willing to share and with whom they're willing to share it. Companies go to the clearinghouse and withdraw the information needed. Fee is based on how the information is intended to be used. The clearinghouse collects the fee, takes its cut, and disperses the rest to the customers affected.

 

[TheEarl]

I'm with Imp. It's a nice idea, but the horse has already bolted and there's no way of enforcing charges on all of the information that's already out there.

The Earl

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Enforcement would be a bitch. Joe Citizen is not gonna hire a lawyer to chase down a leak. It'd have to be a class action.

The only way I can see to make it feasible is to have a clearinghouse, of sorts. Folks register. Deposit the information they're willing to share and with whom they're willing to share it. Companies go to the clearinghouse and withdraw the information needed. Fee is based on how the information is intended to be used. The clearinghouse collects the fee, takes its cut, and disperses the rest to the customers affected.

That's a good initial idea. I'd say the clearinghouse idea is the one to beat.

 

[gauchecritic]

Except that your name, address and telephone number are already public information. (for most people, although I can't find an amicus anywhere in the phonebook)

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Except that your name, address and telephone number are already public information. (for most people, although I can't find an amicus anywhere in the phonebook)

The White House has no problem sealing records. Why can't we seal all of that?