A Good Insight Into The Basic Assumptions On The Left -- Every Issue Is An Opportunity to Raise Taxes and Give Politicians A Bigger Trough to Feed At
When I saw the headline of this post by Kevin Drum -- Our Personal Data Is Worth a Lot. Facebook Should Pay For It -- I was just going to use it as the starting point for a quick post saying that if we should be paid by Facebook for our personal data, the government should pay my company for all the data (Census, DOL, etc) that we are asked to provide.
However, when I actually read the post, I was simply amazed at the way Leftists think about solutions to this. To me, the least intrusive solution is say that Facebook needs to be transparent about the data it gathers so users can decide intelligently if they want to be on the platform. Or, if we decide that Facebook is not a near-monopoly common carrier, the second least intrusive solution is to require Facebook to allow users to opt out of having their private data used for things beyond providing core services of the platform. If Facebook can't make that business model work, they might charge users $10 a month but waive the charge if you opt in to their using the data for a defined set of other purposes. Because we already are being paid for our data in the form of free usage of a (to some) valuable platform. Its just a very non-transparent transaction where both the costs and benefits are hard to evaluate. The best role for the government is to make it easier for us as individuals to better understand this cost-benefit tradeoff.
But here are the default solutions from two folks on the Left:
Shapiro thinks we all deserve a cut of that since this personal data is, after all, ours. He suggests a complicated mechanism where the government collects the money and then cuts everyone a check. But why not just levy a tax and be done with it? That would be simpler. Put all the money in a special fund designed to . . . I dunno, fight income inequality or buy everyone computers. I’ll bet Elizabeth Warren could come up with a plan for it.
Ugh, really? If I did not read his blog all the time I would almost think Drum's personal solution is parody. Does he really think giving my money to Elizabeth Warren to spend is a way for me to recover any value?
