I agree that data should be considered personal property with all the rights and privileges that come with it, including many of the points listed. However, Pandora’s box is fully opened and I don’t see any practical way to put it back the way it was. I have very little faith that lawmakers can craft meaningful legislation to address the many dimensions of personal data privacy, and even less in the departments that would need to enforce any legislation that was enacted. I believe that personal data privacy will continue to be a lightning rod topic, and while it will be impossible to roll back data collection, there are still opportunities to rein in areas like facial recognition and profiling – or at least I hope there will be.

One hopes that this will apply to government as well. We can then ask the IRS to forget us so that we don’t have to pay taxes!

On a serious note, I agree that consumers should have more control over the data stored on them. However, I am not sure that data should be a property right – especially if it’s given willingly. I also think government has no business mandating what consumers should be paid for data: that’s a private contract matter between individuals and companies.

Absolutely, personal data should be owned by individuals and carefully protected. In Europe, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which was introduced in May last year tries to regulate exactly that. In my opinion, privacy should be tackled with more focus throughout the world.

He’s advocating for an American equivalent of GDPR – what he outlines is almost exactly GDPR. We should learn from GDPR’s early success and failure. Slate published an article in March (a year into GDPR) analyzing the results. What they found is that GDPR policies have successfully improved breach notification law, but they fail when it comes to imposing fines on companies that don’t adequately protect their customers’ data.

The question can be posed: do the data that one provides to a business become part of the public domain or is the provider entrusting those data to the recipient only, with no right to share it? If warnings are issued to the individual before the fact, then the consumer can opt to not provide the data or, given a choice, can request that data not be shared. If the product or service provider does not offer those choices, we can go do business with another business.

The only thing I’d add is a suggestion of choosing an option that would pay you for the data. I’ve read work by a few economists lately suggesting the same thing; your data is valuable, why should you give it away? Would you give some unknown entities other things of value for free? Like your car or your laptop or your zillion dollar bicycle (OK, that’s personal)? No. This would also create an economy of its own — I sell you my data, you sell me some goods that make sense to me. Rather than the one-sided proposition we’ve got in place now, which is: business gets all.

If we actually had a functioning Consumer Protection Agency, the above idea should be something they would move forward on and activate.

Companies have been collecting data about their customers for years. The data is used to better target customers with products and services. The reason that people are getting more concerned currently is the data is collected more frequently and easily using electronic means. There are some changes needed to better protect consumer data, but implementing Yang’s ideas could eliminate much consumer data from use by companies. Companies will find it more difficult to forecast their consumers’ needs and desires causing their market risk and costs to go up. There is a definite downside to the Yang rules for such stringent restrictions on the use of consumer data.

I know that The MIT Media Lab in 2009 felt this way too. HOWEVER — people ARE being paid for their data, IT’S CALLED FREE CONTENT! And guess what? this has existed since the early days of TV, newspapers (couldn’t be profitable without ad revenues), radio, etc. Now, if Yang and others want to change the economic exchange, fine, let’s see a legitimate proposal on how that would work. The only other element to bring up is that when marketers advertise on free media, there is no guarantee that people pay any attention. If consumers want to get paid for their data they must agree to being in a virtual room where they guarantee to pay attention — sounds complicated! Under the current system, I even think privacy protection like GDPR has gone way overboard. I think the current system is probably the best of all worlds, sorry Yang.

I love the idea — in theory. In reality, exactly what constitutes personal data?

There is limited respect for “personal data” among companies operating in the U.S. and there absolutely are needed improvements along the lines of the E.U. This proposal, however, while sounding great, leaves a lot of space for debate/interpretation after the campaign. If it were a bill brought to a discussion for a vote, I’d have a lot more interest. As campaign rhetoric, it has little meaning. Look at how few campaign promises the current president made that have actually come to pass.

I am all for more consumer choice and control of the shopping experience, including from a data privacy perspective. Sure companies are getting value from this data, so consumers being paid for that value is not by any means the craziest idea I’ve heard in this election cycle to date.

On the other hand, I think consumers have always been willing to accept no compensation from brands, or far more commonplace, to pay to advertise brands. Who reading this article does NOT own an apparel product that has a brand logo plastered for all to see on it? Hmmm …

Consent? Yes. As others have pointed out, that’s what GDPR already does. Compensation? The great thing about a free market is we as consumers get to choose how much we think our data is worth, and whether the “compensation” being offered (through the delivery of free services like social networks) is worth it. If we don’t like the deal we can decide not to take it. I’m not 100 percent sure what Mr. Yang is proposing, but I think the market we have works just fine.

Companies can certainly do a better job of informed consent without a lot of fine print. Let me opt in or opt out in simple terms (can we share your data outside of our company or not?). Beyond that, compensation is not likely and I’m not sure how much government intrusion I want on this.

Something I feel every politician is going to agree on for once. Maybe we can get something done in Washington. The problem is that the conditions that companies put on using their products or services require a lot of information about you or allowing them to track a lot of what you do on the web and if you don’t give them permission you can not use the service.

We’ve heard or even used terms like, “data is the new gold” or “data is the new oil.” It underpins every industry, creates new ones, and keeps growing exponentially. We’ve also elevated “consumer-centric” as today’s default strategy. Both worldviews reside in structure where companies do things to and for consumers. Companies create products and services from which consumers choose, ideally in a fair and equitable value exchange.

What if the consumer with thousands of personal attributes and a lifelong spending value becomes the starting point for this exchange? What if companies compete to fulfill individual consumer demands based on unique requirements controlled and broadcast by the consumer? Technology and the prominence and ubiquity of data, of personal data, in today’s and even more so tomorrow’s economy, have the potential to turn the value exchange paradigm on its head.

Ownership and control of your personal data is inevitable in the long run, and is the first step for this potential inversion of the existing value exchange paradigm.

There is a cryptocurrency company – Shopin – that was built to do just that. The consumer enters information into their version of blockchain database and if the retailer wants to use it for personalization purposes they pay the consumer a token. Obviously that gets converted to the currency of the shopper’s choice once received.

Yes, our information is our property and our currency. Period.

This is a bit contrarian, but we do receive compensation for data. When we download apps or use websites we don’t pay for what we use, so advertising and sharing of personal data is the fee for content and services — whether we like it or not. Of course, most people don’t understand the data crumbs we leave or the extent of how that data is used. And much of the data we share (willingly or not) then takes on a life of its own. Better transparency and control are certainly needed so Yang’s proposal does have legs.

Metadata is fair game. It’s like counting cars through a tollbooth. Individual data, likes and dislikes, purchase history and even eavesdropped conversation (Alexa, et al), isn’t. This is akin to digging through one’s personal files and using them for commercial advantage.

Yang is right.

A lot of the tenets proposed are similar to those of an amped-up GDPR and yes, I agree that it’s time to enforce basic data regulations in the U.S. With that said, I’m not sure that a lawmaker is going to be able to pull passing this legislation in the U.S., where corporate lobbyists have a strong influence and behemoths like Amazon are trying to be the voice for federal privacy law.

I agree with Mr Yang. Your personal data is your own property and you should and many cases are compensated for it in the form of discounts, offers and specials.

I would add an 8th commandment and that is when a company is acquired by another entity or goes into chapter 11 that all data must be deleted upon customer notification and request.