What's the limit of coercion?
Can someone provide a product that loudly says "we will sell your geolocation data" on checkout?
Is it coercion if you simply want the product?
What's the limit of coercion?
Can someone provide a product that loudly says "we will sell your geolocation data" on checkout?
Is it coercion if you simply want the product?
Yes. Paying the money the data is worth isn’t coercive, linking some other transaction to selling your location data is.
This includes having a discount larger than what your location data is worth. IE: I’ll sell you this car for 50k, o you want it without location tracking that will be 150k.
I think the practice of tying the use of one product to coerce the loss of rights of your private data has some comparables (noted below).
The law seems to recognize that companies coercing someone to give up money using tie-ins may be illegal but is not yet recognizing data as a monetary equivalent. Because it’s not money it’s not regulated.
Isn’t it time that our data be treated as the exchange of value that it is? And the coercion should be something we are protected against?
1. abuse of monopoly power in tie-in sales.
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
2. Freebie marketing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor-and-blades_model
3. RESPA
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/real-estate-settlement-...
If thats the standard, then I suggest people find a less polarizing word with a clearer definition.
Putting the semantics aside, Who decides what it is worth and to whom?
Why wouldn't a company sell a car without geodata for what it is worth? Maybe it is worth 150k to them because that is what some people will pay the maximum return price point for that package?
One of the major things courts do is price stuff, ie how much is a lost leg worth.
The question isn’t what’s the value of not being tracked, the question is what’s tracking data itself is worth. Here what the company actually makes selling the data puts an actual price on what that data is worth.
If you can make 50$/year selling the data and want to pay someone 40$ to be tracked that’s a reasonable transaction, if you want to charge them 1,000$/year not to be tracked than it’s no longer about what the data itself is worth.
A court will decide the cost of a leg someone lost in an accident.
However, If Elon wants your leg as a sex toy, a court won't set a price and force you to sell it.
Finding the actual value has nothing to do with forcing the sale.
The point is Elon can’t price Starlink at 1 billion dollars a month then give a 999,999,900 discount if you give up your privacy. At that point the bundle is coercive.
I dont think that is coercive. I dont think coercion has anything to do with finding the value. It is "coercive" if he puts a bullet in your brain if you buy neither option.
Legally have “sex with me or lose your job” is considered coercion without any direct threat of force. Sleep with me and I’ll pay you 10k isn’t.
The difference is leveraging something else in the transaction not just payment.
By that definition a 150k car clearly isnt. It is obviously payment inside the transaction
There is a valid debate but the example I gave clearly coerced the consumer. They had paid for something with the expectation of use and then were hit with a requirement to give consent after the transaction. We shouldn't let some grey area prevent us from stopping the ongoing harm. One side has clearly been abusing the other. If a law goes just a little to far in favor of the consumer I think we can all agree that is better than letting the consumer be completely abused without protections. You don't let an attacker keep punching their victim because we gotta get the laws perfect to act to stop them. Act and reduce the harm and then adjust to get the balance right.
GDPR does a great job defining this iirc?
gating the product on unrelated data access is coercive