If an ISP sells your data, you deserve a cut of the profit.

The browsing history that they sell is not a personal one based on your computer. It is a collective block of information on the work that their routers do. They are not marking the information you have provided, but merely the actions that their routers are taking while providing that service to you.

In addition, they can just "pay you" by reducing their bill. Then can then also arbitrarily increase their bill by that amount, like they do every so often from inflation. A lack of competition means there is no reason for them to do anything else for you, price-wise.

You agree to all of their requirements (if they're not against law), when you buy their service.

Your contract (because the fact, that they can sell it if nothing in contract disagrees, is now law) now includes the fact that you're letting them use your history, in addition to paying them for service. If you disagree, then negotiate different contract.

My browser history is mine. I made it.

But is it though? I mean you made it using the ISP's service. Like I don't actually know but I mean I'm guessing you can't point to a legal precedent that that data is your's and not the ISP's.

Lets take a look a this first from the perspective of Facebook or Google. Their services are typically free - your activity as a user of their service is how you "pay" for it. Your activity has value, and your exchanging your activity for the service they provide. You are not a customer, you are a user - the customer is the brokers that buy their data. The service is their payment to you in exchange for that data. Remember money is just a store of value, you've clearly assigned value to their service, you are being paid from their perspective - just not in cash, but services rendered.

Now, an ISP is different but similar. You are a customer of the ISP. You pay from for a service - internet. However, they also are data brokers, with customers on that side. From the ISPs perspective, your activity has value, which they can then sell.

Now, from an accounting or business perspective, the revenue that value generates is entirely up to them to decide how to use. They can keep it, or like you said theoretically return it to you...

But how would they return it? You already pay them. Say it's $50 a month and you generate $1 a month in data revenue. They can simply argue that they're charging you $50 rather than $51 dollars a month. From an accounting perspective they can reduce the marginal cost of providing your service to you and charge you less. They would never send you money, that's ridiculous, even between businesses these things are typically handled on a net basis, IE I give you a credit not cash.

So while I may not personally think it's generally the case, it is very easy for an ISP to argue that they are giving you money back by generating revenue from your usage and thus reducing the charge for your service. It's anyone's guess whether that's the case but I think it negates the argument that you deserve a cut as you cannot prove you're not already receiving one. These things are often trade secrets however and you cannot neccesarily argue for itemization anymore than you can how much Comcast pays HBO for your subscription.

The argument then is that market pressure optimizes for the ISP that can provide the lowest cost selling said data.

If I'm hired by a store to stand inside and count how many people walk into the store, am I required to pay the patrons for that?

It's a private store, they're allowed to keep track of how many people enter it.

If we concede that that's their data, that they collected, shouldn't we also concede that they can then go tell the store next door how many people entered? And if they're allowed to do that, shouldn't they be allowed to charge for it?

Your browsing history isn't data you created. It's an action you created that was logged by someone else.

In copyright law, there's two different ownable things here (since your argument is "you made it" so you should own it, that sounds like a copyright argument to me): There's the person who logs the data, like how a record company owns recordings of a band,

and then there's the creation of the underlying material, like how a song writer owns the writes to the song (but not the recordings of it).

If we want to look at it like this, the underlying material would be you browsing, but that's not ownable material. But that's a different story. Let's say it was. This is the part you'd own. If it was owned by you, then your ISP's couldn't sell "going to google.com". They couldn't sell the actual actions you perform.

But they could be the ones who record/log it, and they would be the owners of that.

Which is what they're doing.

If an ISP is going to sell it, then I deserve a portion of the proceeds

"Your price for Xfinity went up from $75 to $100"

(Two days later) "congrats you've qualified for the SellYourData discount! Your monthly price will be discounted $25, to $75"

I guess my point isn't so much to say that you shouldn't get a cut (other commenters have addressed that), but that it'll become baked into your plan such that there's no change in your bill and they'll make all the profit.

In theory, you should receive a cut of the profits whether you "deserve" it or not:

The cash flow of a company is Profits=Income-Costs. Assuming the costs and profit margin stay the same (because of competition), an additional income from selling your data should reduce the need of income from customers.

Meaning that in the end you should see the rise of 2 identical services that differ in only the following: One is cheaper with your data sold and the other is more expensive with your data private.

The problem with this theory is that competition is not always a given in telecoms. Networks are inherently monopolistic things.

Still, if there are some competitors locally and the market is vocal enough, you might be able to find someone who offers ISP contracts with a privacy clause. Expect to pay a premium. (Which is equivalent to having a cut of the profits with non-private ISPs)

In theory, you do get a share of the profit in the form of paying less for the service than you would otherwise have to. If the ISP is supplementing its revenue by selling user data then it can afford more competitive pricing without hurting its profit margin.

The problem with that of course being that most US service providers don't have to worry much about being competitive with their pricing...but that is a whole nuther issue

Edit :spelling is hard

This cannot be argued against in its current form. “Deserve” is not something you can really argue against with rationality.

Hypothetical: I own a restaurant. I sell a dish with, let's say, goat, or some meat not normally available locally. The local supermarket finds out and contacts me because they're interested in how much I'm selling and wether goat may be a product they could benefit from offering. I generally don't give out what I'm making on a particular item but they offer me a sum for the data because it will help their decision. My customers have technically contributed to the data but I'm the one compiling it, providing the access to the product, and should be able to sell data I've collected if I choose. On top of that, it would be time consuming and expensive to track down every customer to give them a cut, even if I thought they deserved one.

Your argument can be flipped back on you:

If you make any money by doing work over the Internet (e.g. selling on eBay), then the ISP deserves a cut.

Think of it in network terms rather than in personal use. From the ISP perspective they aren't selling what you as DrScientist is doing so much as selling metrics of how their customers use their network, specifically which sites are being accessed and how often. The ISP isn't pulling anything from your own computer, but instead are taking information that their network is doing and selling that as useful information to other companies.

I might go to Burger King to eat, but I don't own my order number and its listed contents, or how often I as a person show up there. Burger King does and if they want to sell those metrics to an advertisement company that's their data, not mine. I got what I paid for at the agreed price, burger, fries, and a soda for seven bucks. You are paying the ISP for (and receiving) network access to the Internet under whatever agreement they offer which with virtual monopolies is probably not going to be to your total satisfaction. I get that and agree that it seems unfair, but the fact is they're actually selling their data metrics, you don't own the routing tables, netflow information, or peering relationships that hangs the Internet together. You are paying for access.

That said using the Internet at all should be done with the expectation that your privacy and information is for sale anyway (and is many other places than your ISP and far more invasively) and it has long been advocated by privacy organizations to take measures to secure that data. The public at large hasn't so everything else aside I feel that out of the list of people profiteering on your data the ISPs are probably of the least concern and weakest leg to stand on ideologically speaking.

Would you also extend this argument to observations that people make about you? For example - do you require a cut of the Census department Budget because your information was collected as a part of that census?

If you were seen running to your car in the rain and this inspired a great painting that sold for many millions of dollars - would you require a cut of those proceeds for inspiring that painting?

If someone bought your childhood home and managed scrape all of your dust and dead skin off the ground and sell it for millions of dollars would you require a cut of this?

If you shit in the woods and it was a perfect recreation of the Acropolis in Athens, somebody found it and sold it for an ungodly amount of money - would you require a cut of this?

The debate around selling personal browsing data is not usually centered around property rights but rather the right to privacy. Property rights typically center around something that you have an intrinsic right to (your physical personage and your thoughts) as well things that you have been given a legal right tough either by will or purchase. So when you produce a browsing history as a byproduct of your normal function - you are not constructing a product of intellectual effort. Byproducts of your personage are NOT your personage and therefore don't fall within your sphere of personal property unless prior agreement holds that to be the case. Aka unless you have obtained an agreement from your ISP that you obtain certain rights to that information then they can collect it all they want. Just like somebody can bust open a sewer and collect all the product of your waste that they want. Just because it came from you doesn't mean its yours.

But in any business, having customers helps you more than just the one product. For example, out of two otherwise similar products, you choose the one that 100000 people have bought instead of the one 10 people have bought, just because it seems more safe choice.

Selling customer data is just another way how having customers increases the value for a company. This way is different than for many companies but there's no ultimate reason why this would mean the customers need to get an explicit share.

Consider a sports team. You're selling a product, entertainment in the form of skillful players and excitement. But you're also selling a product, good atmosphere among fans at the stands. You wouldn't go to a football match if there was nobody else watching.

The fans are your customer but they are also part of your product, so the situation is similar. The owner of the team carefully considers this when setting the ticket price. Too expensive ticket would mean less spectators, and even if it yielded a better income in a few games, it would diminish the value of the product in long term, so it probably isn't the best solution. That's why some teams give extremely cheap tickets, or even free tickets, if the game happens to be in an inconvenient time mid-week and nobody would show up. It's in their best interest.

Now if the fans are part of the product, do they deserve a cut? Why would they? It's just part of the business. You might argue that their cut is cheaper prices, but that really isn't how it's calculated. The business just sets the price to the level that they estimate is best for them long-term.

I don't agree with the below perspective, but here's a devil's advocate view:

ISPs aren't selling your internet history, as in - they don't care about you (or any other user's history for that matter) - and neither do the entities that purchase sets of historical browsing data. What the ISPs are selling is insights about related interests (people who do this also like that, etc.).

Imagine you observe the parking lot of a grocery store for a number of days and you tally each type of car make. You then could sell that info to car makers to assist them in determining their advertising purchase (with that grocery store/in demographically focused as pools/etc.). You wouldn't pay the owners of those cars because you are selling collections of observations.

In this interpretation, your individual browsing history is of no value thus it is not a commodity, and their sale of macro level insights is no different than tallying car makes as vehicles enter a parking lot.

This argument is fucking stupid, but it's one that's been articulated before (in various other forms) by ISPs.

This argument reminds me of one in which a bakery wanted to charge people for hanging outside and smelling their delicious bread. The escaping smell has no intrinsic value to the bakery just like your online viewing behaviour has no intrinsic value to you. That's not to say that there is no value in a good smell or some good usage statistics.

Honestly, I feel the same as you do. I equate how you feel to how I feel when military personnel are used to clean messes of companies or transport CEO's in hostile territory. They should be PAID what a person accepting THAT job would be paid by the corporation.

So while I understand the nature of being profited off of I also accept the precident of being awarded $0 for something that is worth $0 to you. Now, making the collection/sale of that data illegal again I CANNOT argue against. ISP's have a profot margin above 90% (I believe it's actually 97 or something incredible) and I'm tired of being sold out by OUR representatives for greedy companies to further profit.

You could probably sue your ISP under invasion of privacy tort law which covers:

Intrusion of solitude: physical or electronic intrusion into one's private quarters

Public disclosure of private facts: the dissemination of truthful private information which a reasonable person would find objectionable

False light: the publication of facts which place a person in a false light, even though the facts themselves may not be defamatory

And

Appropriation: the unauthorized use of a person's name or likeness to obtain some benefits

I'm not a lawyer and I think it would be pretty hard to prove damages if being sold without your name attached but I'm pretty sure selling your browsing history violates this. If I had infinitely deep pockets I would take them to civil court strictly on principal.

I wonder how many people would have to do this to offset their profits with legal / court fees and if they could counter-sue for lost wages due to time in court.

You don't own the property rights to your actions. Your browser history is the recorded usage of an Internet browser, so you don't own the usage of somebody else's product. And, it isn't a right to use the Internet, it's a privilege. Same thing with using websites. I don't have the right to use Google, but it's a privilege Google gives me. Also, you have the full right to cancel ISP service. As long as you are under contract, your Internet is owned by your ISP. They could easily just take it out from under you. In the same way that I can't make money by selling your rental car. The rental company is just letting me use their vehicle, they operate a service. The ISP operates a service. By selling off the recorded usage of the service, that is selling off your usage of the rental car to somebody else. A better analogy may even be renting out a rental car. As long as you don't own the internet browser and the ISP, it is not yours to sell.

I advise you to read Marc Elsberg's "Zero" to learn why this would be a dissastrous idea.

Basically, once you allow end-users to sell their own personal data, it soon becomes VERY popular for them to do so. Especially among young adults and teenagers: people who produce A LOT of sensitive marketable data, and are short on cash.

Sooner than you know, you will have people prostituting the entirety of their personal information and privacy, and becoming pretty much enslaved by their data-purchaser employeer.

If you think the way youtubers, v-loggers and bloggers sell themselves shamelessly, and how camgirls degrade themselves is bad, wait until the same people can sell ALL their data, not just the entertaining part.

TLDR: this would create a highly exploitative and socially destructive market that would devour young people whole.

Responding to your analogy:

A company is earning money off the dust from your footsteps. The thing is that you want to walk, walking isn't necessarily work for you. You've been walking this whole time and not selling the dust, in fact, you have been paying a company for the privilege of walking.

Said company has noticed this and realized "all these people are just leaving their dust around, we can find a use for it and sell it!"

The walkers may catch wind of this and say, "I want my cut," but the reality is that they never cared about the dust, they were going to make dust anyway, and they will continue to make dust regardless of whether they are paid or not.

I think the position is that the ISP provides you with a service, and the data they gather describe the ways in which you use that service. It is analogous to grocery stores keeping track of your purchases so they can provide you with coupons based on what you buy - you don't get a cut of the grocery store profits, but you benefit in being given coupons you are more likely to use. In the case of web-browsing, you benefit by being shown ads that are more likely to represents products or services you want.

Wasn't this similar to the NetZero free model?

I think there should be room for a well funded startup ISP to enter the market with an internet model where we disallow VPNs, but we offer free (or very close to free, but kinda crummy) internet to people in exchange for selling their porn browser history.

Obviously, there is a huge barrier to entry to simply become an ISP, and I can't see the current administration easing that, but it might work. If you get Facebook and/or Google behind it.

We need government installed and managed fiber optic lines, that whichever ISP I, a private citizen, choose can use. That way, if Comcast says they're recording and selling my data, I can switch to a different ISP. Right now, Comcast owns my cable lines so i can't switch. They have a captive customer with no ability to dollar vote for a better service. It's the horror of monopolies but the government isn't doing anything about it.

They own the service and they have the right to set their conditions, you then can decide whether whatever they're asking is worth what they are offering in return (whether it's money or money + the right to sell your data). They are not fucking you over because they are askig for something you consider excesive and unfair just like I cam ask for a million dollars for a drawing on mine and that's my problem

That's like saying you deserve a cut of profits if you were part of a focus group. Or if I observe traffic in an area for product research, and you happen to be part of that, I owe you money. Simply not true. Any data that you freely provide people, they can freely use. When you signed up, you would have agreed to terms, which mean they can use your Metadata and habits for research and sale.

I admittedly skipped your argument to simply say this. Privacy is a human right. I think the comparison of isps and the usps is very appropriate. It is illegal for anyone to open mail that is not addressed to them. Isps act like mail carriers or phone lines. You cannot tap a phone conversation or search my mail for profit.

Lastly, the comparison of Google and Facebook to isps is inappropriate. I don't get internet for free. I do get Google and Facebook for free but I do in exchange of me giving them some access to my information, which I still have some control over. Isps will not be paid by the customer, content and service providers, and profit off of consumer data. There is no consumer protection and now isps have too much power in the industry.

You do. Advertisement gives you free services, like Google search, or Youtube streaming video, or Facebook social connections. Those aren't some God-given right; they cost money to run and maintain. Your cut is getting those for free, in exchange for your personal info being used to target you for ads (because honestly that's what your private info will most likely be used for.)

Not really, that's like saying you deserve a cut of the profit McDonalds makes indirectly or directly from studying your eating habits.

Or anyone monitoring a road for how many cars pass it.

You make a lot of things just by moving around in the world, a footprint if you will. You don't deserve the profit to that footprint unless it was made in your environment.

You will get a cut, with a lower bill than it would be otherwise be if not for this new revenue stream. one of the reasons companies look for new revenue streams is in part to cover their increasing costs without raising rates on customers. So if not for this law, your bill would almost definitely go up faster than it probably will now

In an ideal world, yes. Your bill should be lower since they are now generating more revenue all else the same.

But a government subsidized, private monopoly is not ideal.

They have no legal obligation to give you money. And if you don't like it, tough.

I disagree.

I’d like to go a bit further and say that if an ISP sells your data… they fucking shouldn’t. It’s your data. Selling your personal information is like walking into somebody’s house, stealing a valuable, and selling it on eBay.

Virtually every other industry uses your data to better advertise to you.

Groceries stores

Car lots

Malls

Big box stores

Fastfood

Internet stores

Google

Microsoft

Apple

They all use/sell collective data to better advertise to you.

My position is quite simple. My browser history is mine. I made it.

Your position is quite factually wrong in this case. You "make" lots of things that don't belong to you.

While it is lollipop unlikely that donkey anyone has stapler put this list of words cup together before, I don't own it because I pen made it.

Medical waste, carbon dioxide, excrement, hair, etc. You make all of these things, but you don't own them.

You could argue you already are getting a part of the profit.

Since, if they did NOT sell your data, they would "have to" make up for the profit loss somehow, and that would (probably) be by higher prices.

You already pay you ISP for internet access. Maybe they charge a penny less when selling your data. If they don't then just pretend they jacked up their prices by one penny and then gave you a penny.

This is what EBates is set up to do. You offer shopping data that companies use to sell to advertisers, and you get great discounts on stuff. Pro-active selling definitely gives you a better return.

I'm just afraid of the precedent set, they can go into more detailed IP blocks and find all their traffic history can they not? What's to stop them from doing precisely that.

They plan on raising your bills, then they give you an opt in option which will lower it back to normal. So they are going to pretend like you are getting a cut of it.

My view on ISP having legal ability to sell my information is "don't" though I do have the same view for advertisement on things I've paid for (cable TV for example)

if you had the option of $80 service or $40 service that's exactly the same thing only your data was gathered and sold for marketing which would you pick?

What I like about this:

The administrative overhead would make it less profitable, and in turn, less likely that an ISP would bother in the first place.

Internet Service Provider. You are paying to use their service. Simple as that. Install Epic browser and push the ISP not to do so, not your congressman.

I use Bing Rewards and about once a month I get $5 for letting them track me and probably selling it. Not the ISP but certainly a service I use often.

When you drive on a road and the government collects data on driving patterns on that road - do you deserve any profit they make off that data?

can my phone company sell recording of my calls? is it then ok if I get a little bit of the profits? what fucking bizarro world am I living in?

You can't own an intangible. They owe you nothing. You are saying you own the stream of digits that could have been made by anyone? You do not own any information. No one does.

Except perhaps the information in your head that no one has access to.

If anyone, sells access to your mind through to advertising companies, surely we are entitled to a share of the profit as well?

No?

Arguably, you probably already are. If your ISP is making additional money selling non-identifiable metadata about your usage, that means they can afford to charge you less for the service in the first place. How do you know this isn't already happening?

You made a series of requests to servers using their pipes. They are selling the sets of requests they receive.

Your argument should be "If you pay for a service, you shouldn't be the product".

Sure, just like Henrietta Lacks

Explain why your ISP's server record of your http requests is your property.

What if you entered a contract surrendering your cut?

Legally speaking, "your data" basically treated as a valuable waste product produced by the process of providing you with internet service - it's logged, collated, and collected mostly on ISP hardware, and regards packets sent through their network.

While there could be some other framework for classifying your data, ultimately the problem is that you did not "make it" because the creation of browsing data is not, strictly speaking, economically prouctive, and it has no intrinsic value outside its ability to predict your behavior.

No it's not, you use their service and requested as such you agreed to it under no promise of a cut of anything.

Also nothing has changed with the bill it's only stopped the implementation of the ban on sales that was due months from now.

You don't like it sign with someone who promises a cut or bugger off about it. You aren't entitled to being paid for using their service