Hi,

A topic I’ve been wondering about is the value of data. There’s been research on how much people value data and privacy. Of course, in massive aggregate, aka Google, you can get trillions of dollars. But I’m especially curious on what happens if you drill down to the individual level, while keeping a proportional amount of value.

While we can debate if such a world could exist, I’d argue that it could be possible to achieve this value through individuals owning their own data and lease/selling it to interested parties.

Given that kind of world, I find it interesting to think about how the privacy of that data affects that data’s value. Data is incredibly easy to duplicate; it is just bytes. If I sell you my data with no restrictions, it is trivial for you to copy that data and sell it to as many people as you want. I can’t do that with a car. Some products suffer from being too easy to copy and we protect some products with patents + law.

If my data is completely private, e.g. I’m the only one who knows what it is even after sharing it, then in a way I have a monopoly over my own data. One way this could be archived is bringing algorithms to my data (with additional noise added for extra privacy). Another way to achieve this would be with laws banning the duplication or sale of my data after I share it.

I’m not quite sure what having no privacy is like. Surfs or slaves or peasants paying a lord? I’m constantly generating a resource that is valuable to others and getting, relatively, very little in return. The continuation of the analogy would depend on the lord’s privacy. If they are completely private, they are the sole lord getting value. If every single person is getting value off my data, what am I? Am I a surf for everyone - as if they are a chaos god? Am I the trees and fish getting harvested?

Regardless of the exact analogy, the value of my data goes up with how private that data is. Of course, the product I’m producing has to have value (I have a monopoly over my poop but no one is paying me money for that). If my data has a bunch of value, (maybe my genes have the cure to cancer or I have too much money and don’t know what to spend it on), then it’s extra important I have privacy.

If data needs to be private to have value is true, this leads to the idea that more valuable data needs privacy more than less valuable data. Similar to how the Krabby Patty secret formula needs more privacy than the name of the cashier, my medical data needs more privacy than my name.

However, what makes this hard is value is relative. Someone who wants to ask the cashier on a date may find knowing the their name is Squidward more valuable than the formula. If I’m posting mean articles about a dictator, knowing my name might be more important than my medical data.

Writing this, I also wonder if there’s also an idea of harm or value in preventing someone from having something. I don’t get value out of my poops, I pay for water so it leaves my house. But, while it doesn’t provide me value, I may not want anyone else to have my poop. It could be weird or that might be able to get my DNA sequence.

Lots of ideas. No editing. Night,

Lucas

Hi,

A topic I’ve been wondering about is the value of data. There’s been research on how much people value data and privacy. Of course, in massive aggregate, aka Google, you can get trillions of dollars. But I’m especially curious on what happens if you drill down to the individual level, while keeping a proportional amount of value.

While we can debate if such a world could exist, I’d argue that it could be possible to achieve this value through individuals owning their own data and lease/selling it to interested parties.

Given that kind of world, I find it interesting to think about how the privacy of that data affects that data’s value. Data is incredibly easy to duplicate; it is just bytes. If I sell you my data with no restrictions, it is trivial for you to copy that data and sell it to as many people as you want. I can’t do that with a car. Some products suffer from being too easy to copy and we protect some products with patents + law.

If my data is completely private, e.g. I’m the only one who knows what it is even after sharing it, then in a way I have a monopoly over my own data. One way this could be archived is bringing algorithms to my data (with additional noise added for extra privacy). Another way to achieve this would be with laws banning the duplication or sale of my data after I share it.

I’m not quite sure what having no privacy is like. Surfs or slaves or peasants paying a lord? I’m constantly generating a resource that is valuable to others and getting, relatively, very little in return. The continuation of the analogy would depend on the lord’s privacy. If they are completely private, they are the sole lord getting value. If every single person is getting value off my data, what am I? Am I a surf for everyone - as if they are a chaos god? Am I the trees and fish getting harvested?

Regardless of the exact analogy, the value of my data goes up with how private that data is. Of course, the product I’m producing has to have value (I have a monopoly over my poop but no one is paying me money for that). If my data has a bunch of value, (maybe my genes have the cure to cancer or I have too much money and don’t know what to spend it on), then it’s extra important I have privacy.

If data needs to be private to have value is true, this leads to the idea that more valuable data needs privacy more than less valuable data. Similar to how the Krabby Patty secret formula needs more privacy than the name of the cashier, my medical data needs more privacy than my name.

However, what makes this hard is value is relative. Someone who wants to ask the cashier on a date may find knowing the their name is Squidward more valuable than the formula. If I’m posting mean articles about a dictator, knowing my name might be more important than my medical data.

Writing this, I also wonder if there’s also an idea of harm or value in preventing someone from having something. I don’t get value out of my poops, I pay for water so it leaves my house. But, while it doesn’t provide me value, I may not want anyone else to have my poop. It could be weird or that might be able to get my DNA sequence.

Lots of ideas. No editing. Night,

Lucas