Protecting Your Private Data Is A Top Priority 

Protecting your private data while allowing monetization to support the free internet content model presents a problem. Perhaps the answer is for internet sites to charge for access. Users would be asked what information they want to share and when they want to share it.

Right now the onus of access and choice is on the user. Platforms fear that users’ rights to privacy and opting out of data collection or third-party sharing would kill profits, not to mention, a user’s right to have data deleted if she chooses.

There exists a lot of tension between governments and Big Tech. Hacks into platforms, data over-sharing and under-informing, fake-news are all shielded from legal liability. The notion of Big Tech self-regulation is a non-starter. The best option may be for governments to institute guidelines for best practices – ala the European Union.

The goal of the platforms is to continue to reap the benefits of data collection while mitigating the privacy risks while avoiding  government regulation. The next several years will demonstrate how good the Silicon valley oligarchs  are at lobbying and moving toward slaps on the wrist vs. meaningful user privacy rights.

All individuals and business should be aware of the pitfalls of having data used and manipulated. Data privacy does not currently exist within the internet and it may be time to enact laws to limit how it can be used.