Fighting Back Against Corporate Oligarchs
Arnold Ahlert image

By Arnold Ahlert —— February 25, 2021


Fighting Back Against Corporate OligarchsBig Tech has amassed historically unprecedented levels of wealth power by selling American’s personal information in return for “free” access to their respective sites. In short, instead of Americans paying for product, Americans are the product, to the point where they are being tracked and data-mined 24/7/365, at levels of intrusion that make George Orwell’s Big Brother seem benign by comparison.

In Australia, the government considered legislation that would require Facebook and Google to pay to link to Australian news stories. Facebook’s initial response? The company banned users from posting Australian news content. It insisted the proposal “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” and that news sites already benefit from Facebook referrals.
Great first step towards reining in these out-of-control platforms

Ultimately both companies folded when Australia added binding arbitration on the costs associated with those payments. The digital platforms will get one month’s notice before they are formally designated under Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, giving those involved more time to broker agreements before they are forced to enter binding arbitration.

It’s a great first step towards reining in these out-of-control platforms. Now, let’s go in for the proverbial kill.

What I’m proposing applies to ordinary Americans who don’t have the kind of clout possessed by government, Google, Facebook or all the other corporate behemoth who traffic in our personal information for profit. And if America’s Congress has an ounce of courage, the following could revolutionize the entire data-mining/surveillance landscape:

If one writes a song, a book, etc. and copyrights it, anyone who uses it must pay its creator a royalty.

Congress should pass a law extending such copyright protections to all of one’s personal information. Thus, when corporations sell that info, one should get a royalty payment based on some percentage of that sale.

Toward that end, Congress should also give American an opportunity to renegotiate all preexisting agreements that one is forced to sign in order to access Facebook, Twitter, etc., and require that royalty clause to be included in all such user-provider agreements going forward.

At the point one of two things will happen: Americans will make a lot more money—or get a lot more privacy.

It doesn’t get more win-win than that.

https://canadafreepress.com/article/fighting-back-against-corporate-oligarchs


ya!

GWB

I like the idea.....but the “price” people pay for all the fun schit on Facebook is their privacy.

There is no fun schit on Facebook worth them stealing your information.

Great post, geedubya. But, I fear we don't have enough unowned Congress critters to make that stick. They sold their cohones long ago.

I can go with the concept of protecting intellectual and artistic rights. Lot's of hard work and time is stolen daily. I too am an artist, communicator / public speaker. This is important to me.
I've had people in public leadership positions openly steal tens of thousands of dollars from me.

A friend just conducted an investigation into his copyright protected works. Guess who the thieves were?

......A: Agencies of multiple govts including the US.
It's not enough that they steal from us yearly. A BIG chunk of labor is taken from us constantly and we are allowed to keep some too.
Why?

A: We live in the land of the fee, home of the slave.

That's a surprisingly good idea; especially to see here, on the 'fire. GD

How about the Credit Bureaus or Agencies? They've been profiting off private information for far longer than Google, et. al.

False information can be posted on your credit report and getting it removed or corrected is like passing an act of Congress. How about Experian (aka Equifax) with their Experian Boost shakedown scheme offering a magical increase to your credit score if you pay them money?

The ones that sign up for that crap think otherwise, they sell their souls for 👍👍👍

Unfortunately, it is not just Face Book. It is Google, Apple, your smart phone, your home computer, your car, credit cards, customer "loyalty" cards, online purchases, ad nausea...

What Americans need is some form of GDPR+. Unfortunately, there are too many swamp creatures in DC making money off of (being paid by) Big Tech to have any chance of GDPR-like legislation being passed in the U.S. JMO...

Florida is working on protections.

IMO, any financial institution, credit reporting agency, or merchant who comes into possession of peoples' information should be held strictly accountable and responsible for keeping it secure regardless of the circumstances that put that information in their hands. When someone hacks into Trans-Union's database and hoists consumers' financial data a simple "oops," apology, and a year's worth of "free credit monitoring" do not cut it.

If you're going to copyright something, don't you have to tell everyone what it is?