Why Ownership is the Wrong Question
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Steven Greenberg
Sep 16, 2008, 7:17:17 AM9/16/08
to dataportability-...@googlegroups.com
Christian makes the very reasonable point that he wants to be able to control how data he provides is used. Giving more control to users is a Good Thing, but "ownership" is the wrong foundation on which to make our case. Control and ownership are two different things. Ownership implies
control, but it also implies a lot more and that's where the trouble
comes in. A focus on ownership takes us into the realm of intellectual property and, to coin a phrase, Here Be Dragons. We want to keep our arguments as far from property rights as we possibly can.
Why? First, let's look at where the value actually resides. Think about Facebook (although this argument this applies to any site). You provide a tiny drop of data about yourself as the price of entry and, in return, you get access to a sea of data about other users. Facebook takes that raw material, normalizes it, structures it, organizes it, and combines it with other people's data. That's what makes your data useful. That's what turns your data into "information" and makes it valuable.
It's that corpus, the aggregated set of information, that is interesting to you as a user and to the advertisers who pay for the whole thing. They created an appealing site that induced a hundred million people to provide data, maintain the community so people don't leave, and provided technical tools to navigate the mammoth databases underneath. It's their tools that make the data usable and, thus, valuable.
So, in a world where say that everything is about property, who "owns" the information that was created when "your" data was uploaded to Facebook?
They do.
You paid that raw material to them as your price of entry, then they expended substantial effort to make it useful. When you try to get it out, what you're actually getting back is their processed and structured version of your crappy old data. You probably also want to bring along data about stuff you've done there. Activities. Connections with other users. Hey, they're "your" friends, right? Nope. You have even less claim to data that other people provided. You at least can claim to have created the data you uploaded. What claim do you have to data that somebody else provided to a third party as payment for a service you didn't perform?
Besides, you provided that data to Facebook in the first place, right? Therefore, you already have it. If you already have every bit of the data, then why pester Facebook for portability at all? The reason is that you want some of that structure, technology, or related value that they added.
This is the ownership view of the world, based on value. I believe that this approach should be treated as though it were constructed entirely from monkey dung infected with the ebola virus. It is not the only way to look at this problem. The follow on effects could be terrifying (Want a good scare? Read up on how the proposed WIPO treaties would create whole new property rights on databases and broadcasts).
In my next message, I'll talk about an alternative that I believe is better both for the user and the industry.
Steve
Why? First, let's look at where the value actually resides. Think about Facebook (although this argument this applies to any site). You provide a tiny drop of data about yourself as the price of entry and, in return, you get access to a sea of data about other users. Facebook takes that raw material, normalizes it, structures it, organizes it, and combines it with other people's data. That's what makes your data useful. That's what turns your data into "information" and makes it valuable.
It's that corpus, the aggregated set of information, that is interesting to you as a user and to the advertisers who pay for the whole thing. They created an appealing site that induced a hundred million people to provide data, maintain the community so people don't leave, and provided technical tools to navigate the mammoth databases underneath. It's their tools that make the data usable and, thus, valuable.
So, in a world where say that everything is about property, who "owns" the information that was created when "your" data was uploaded to Facebook?
They do.
You paid that raw material to them as your price of entry, then they expended substantial effort to make it useful. When you try to get it out, what you're actually getting back is their processed and structured version of your crappy old data. You probably also want to bring along data about stuff you've done there. Activities. Connections with other users. Hey, they're "your" friends, right? Nope. You have even less claim to data that other people provided. You at least can claim to have created the data you uploaded. What claim do you have to data that somebody else provided to a third party as payment for a service you didn't perform?
Besides, you provided that data to Facebook in the first place, right? Therefore, you already have it. If you already have every bit of the data, then why pester Facebook for portability at all? The reason is that you want some of that structure, technology, or related value that they added.
This is the ownership view of the world, based on value. I believe that this approach should be treated as though it were constructed entirely from monkey dung infected with the ebola virus. It is not the only way to look at this problem. The follow on effects could be terrifying (Want a good scare? Read up on how the proposed WIPO treaties would create whole new property rights on databases and broadcasts).
In my next message, I'll talk about an alternative that I believe is better both for the user and the industry.
Steve
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