The question of who owns your data isn't a stupid question.
It's definitely a complicated one.
There is the argument that my data is my own and when I do something on Facebook or on
OkCupid or wherever that that is an asset that I've created that I deserve to control.
And of course Facebook's argument and obviously OkCupid's argument is well, what we're giving
you in exchange for your data very clearly are these tools.
Like on OkCupid you can find dates.
On Facebook you can connect with long lost friends.
You have an easy platform to collect pictures.
You…
To the extent that any of these sites are useful, that's why people use them.
There's nobody that has to use Facebook or certainly OkCupid.
There's plenty of alternatives for that.
People have argued that you should be able to get money in exchange for contributing
your data to Facebook and Facebook goes and sells the fact that you're into Ferraris or
whatever to Ferrari so therefore you see ads and you're somehow more incrementally more
likely to buy a nice car, that you should somehow get money from that.
But my argument there is what they're giving you in exchange for this information is the
fact that you can use Facebook for free.
It's not like the phone service where you used to have like a $50 phone bill or $100
phone bill every month.
It's free.
However, I think there's a good argument for you being able to – when you're tired of
that exchange I don't want to use Facebook anymore, you should be able to exit that experience
wholly rather than leaving whatever vestige of yourself you have to leave now.
I know that they give you tools for that and the world I think generally is coming around
this idea, but it is scary even to me as an owner of one of these websites, if you're
going to sit there and live online, and for whatever reason you want to break up with
the site that you're still beholden to them even after you've made that decision.
Privacy historically has been a luxury of the rich in certain ways.
Like I bring up these examples in the book but you want to have a private car on a train,
you want to have a house with walls or a house with a big yard walls, you want to live in
some remote stretch out in Woodstock or wherever.
There's not jobs up there out in Montana with these huge ranches and stuff unless you happen
to be running a ranch.
So private islands, all this stuff these are all extremely expensive, private jets, extremely
expensive options that people who have a lot of money choose to take, somewhat for privacy,
somewhat for convenience.
But for the Internet - it's hard to argue that it will be easier to remain off-line.
So that means it's probably going to be harder.
And to the extent that people who have less money have less time to spend worrying about
this kind of stuff the same way that obviously wealthier people tend to worry a lot more
about what they're eating, kale and all this other stuff.
To make the analogy to the online world, it probably will the case with people with more
leisure, people with more time to be educated about it will probably have a more private
online experience.
I'm not sure it's the money itself that will drive that.
I don't think you're going to have to give Facebook $100 or whatever it is to keep private,
although it might come to that.
I think people who have more money will be able to live a more private life online.