The future of data regulation: a question of capitalism or democracy?
George O. Strawn
Director Emeritus of the NAS Board on Research Data and Information.
Prior to joining the Academy, he was: the director of the Federal National Coordination Office for the Networking and IT Research and Development; NSF chief information officer; the executive officer of NSF/CISE; director of the CISE Division of Advanced Networking Infrastructure and Research; NSFnet program officer; Iowa State University Director of the Computation Center; chair of the Computer Science Department.
This is a reaction to Matt Prewitt and Divya Siddarth’s commentary: ‘Data governance for democracy’ published in the Policy Labs in September 2021
The internet has made it possible to both collect information from individuals in an unprecedented way and to monetize that information. Information gleaned from web browsing, online purchases, emails, and social media posts comes to mind. This information is valuable because it enables vendors to better target likely purchasers, politicians to contact sympathetic voters, and so forth. The major shift of advertising dollars into web-based ads clearly illustrates the value of this information. Presently, most of this personal information is freely provided by the citizens who generate it. Spurred on by Jaron Lanier’s book Who Owns the Future?, other concerned authors have opined that individuals should be paid for contributing such information. Further, important privacy concerns are raised.
Commentary
The Future of Data Regulation: A Question of Capitalism or Democracy?
George O. Strawn
09/12/2021
The internet has made it possible to both collect information from individuals in an unprecedented way and to monetize that information. Information gleaned from web browsing, online purchases, emails, and social media posts comes to mind. This information is valuable because it enables vendors to better target likely purchasers, politicians to contact sympathetic voters, and so forth. The major shift of advertising dollars into web-based ads clearly illustrates the value of this information. Presently, most of this personal information is freely provided by the citizens who generate it. Spurred on by Jaron Lanier’s book Who Owns the Future?, other concerned authors have opined that individuals should be paid for contributing such information. Further, important privacy concerns are raised.
Matt Prewitt raises these issues and suggests a solution in his commentary Data Governance for Democracy. He relates that several countries have introduced an “institutional layer” between individuals and the users of their information. My guess is that any payments to individuals for the use of such information would be very small, as these payments would need to be distributed to hundreds of millions of people. But what about privacy implications? Some researchers have lamented that privacy, as we previously understood the term, is gone and that we must accept that fact. These researchers further suggest that the former concept of privacy should be replaced with three regulations. First, it should be easy for citizens to correct erroneous personal information online. Second, citizens should know who is using their information. Third, there should be laws against the illegal use of personal information, and these laws should be enforced. Sadly, none of these regulations currently exist. Will they exist on the internet of tomorrow?
The rise of mega-corporations that collect, control, and use citizens’ personal information is another concern. In my opinion, however, under capitalism, mega-corporations have always been the end state of developing industries. Sometimes oligopolies arise by themselves (e.g., the former “big three” automakers in the US), and sometimes monopolies are divided into oligopolies (e.g., petroleum refiners in the early 20th century and US telecommunications in 1984). But oligopolies are composed of mega-corporations too. High consumer prices due to oligopolies are often not much different from high prices due to monopolies. This leads me to suspect that asking “Who owns the future?” may be more than just a question of who uses our data. To wit, does democracy control (or even just regulate) capitalism or does capitalism control democracy?
