I thought user data was one of the most valuable assets of a business.
When I worked at Company X, one of our competitors was failing and offered us to buy them out. The most expensive part of the buyout was calculated basically by #users*<some price>. And really that's all we wanted, was their userbase, since we already had the product they wanted. We could absorb their users and immediately grow our business.
I think there's a difference between we'll sell you all this data we have on our users, some of which is related to conducting business with them, and here are our paying customers who you can acquire and continue to provide goods and services to.
The second case is different, and less directly harmful, but still bad for the "free market".
You end up in a situation where you have a few huge companies that have shitty expensive products and huge amounts of money. If anyone ever does better, they use some of the money to acquire the customers. No one ends up with something better or more cost effective; the 800lb gorilla just pays a tax to remain the only choice, and that cost is easily passed right back to the customers.
"Acquiring the customers" seems to be a business strategy with a high failure rate, else we'd be yahooing instead of googling or facebooking. It's hard to predict what competitors are going to blow up, and as soon as they get traction the price goes high - Facebook may have bought WhatsApp, but apparently SnapChat is holding out for more.
I actually think the "free market" works pretty well at this, even if it's not perfect. Nothing is.
And that second case really annoys me, but I'd still rather not take the alternative to a free market, which is that idiots and douchebags decide what's good for me, and leave me with even less choice.
I understand the two sides, but what's the difference to the consumer who has a Newegg account but does not want Amazon to have their personal data?
In the end, Amazon would end up with the consumers data, so to the consumer there is no difference. Are you saying that there is a difference? That's what I wanted clarification on, what that difference was.
To continue with the analogy above the difference arises if Newegg says "We don't share your data with third parties" and does #1. That would breach customer expectations because they are outright lying. The #2 case seems much less clear cut because Newegg wouldn't exist as a standalone entity anymore, and most people's reasonable expectation is Amazon would then have access to Newegg's data. It depends on each person's answer to the question: Is Amazon a third party in the second example?
You are assuming that a Privacy Policy is legally binding, it's generally accepted as not being.
In the example, Amazon can do whatever it wants with the data.
Data submitted to almost anyone online (maybe with the exception of large companies or companies specifically designed to not track data) should be considered public unfortunately.
I have seen some states recently put in place laws to protect this data from being made public or sold carelessly, but for the most part it is unregulated as far as I can tell.
In a discussion about policy, you should never use terms like "generally accepted" and "should be considered" to refer to the reality that is already under question. It's extremely confusing.
The fact that your data isn't protected can't be used as an argument that it shouldn't be. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right, either.
> You are assuming that a Privacy Policy is legally binding, it's generally accepted as not being.
I'm not claiming privacy policies are legally binding, just that they can be an indicator of trustworthiness and integrity. That's what I really meant when I said "[Option #1] would breach customer expectations because they are outright lying."
The way I read mc32's "I think there's a difference" is moral difference, because I share the same sentiment as him or her ("I hope the FTC wins its case...") which would turn that moral difference into a legally binding one.
While I agree that it's probably not legally binding (I beleive even the standard "Click and connect" contracts have been thrown out of courts in the past), do you have any references to share?
Well sure, but when the license is perpetual and royalty-free, what's the difference?
> For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you [...] grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).
>Well sure, but when the license is perpetual and royalty-free, what's the difference?
There would be a difference if the license is non-transferable. Then Facebook wouldn't be able to give or sell that data to 3rd parties as part of a bankruptcy sale.
Edit: in the case of RadioShack's user data, I doubt that they got customers' agreement for a transferable license to the data.
Not sure if you meant "you" or "they" there, but the "you" case is more interesting.
No, "you" generally do not effectively retain the right to license your data collected by a third party out to other entities, because (as far as I know) there are no laws which require that third party to provide you with the data they've collected.
Examples here would be 23andMe vs. Fitbit.
23andMe is in the business of collecting data from you (in essence), then providing it to you and using it for their own purposes.
Fitbit is in the business of collecting data from you, then processing it and performing a number of black box calculations, then providing you summarized results. (Caveat: yes, I am aware that most activity trackers have API / export functionality. However, in all the instances I looked at that's limited and generally crap compared to the raw take the main party has access to)
When I worked at Company X, one of our competitors was failing and offered us to buy them out. The most expensive part of the buyout was calculated basically by #users*<some price>. And really that's all we wanted, was their userbase, since we already had the product they wanted. We could absorb their users and immediately grow our business.