Great point! We ultimately felt (and this is above my paygrade) that it was outside the scope of what we were asked to explore/recommend. So we avoided suggesting taxes that drastically change corporate incentives and behavior around private data. Instead we focused on more equitably distributing the value that's currently generated from data.
We did discuss this and felt that a very deep dive would be needed. (A) It's not an objective no-brainer exactly what behavior you want to disincentivize. (B) The economic impacts/consequences could be huge, so the tradeoff needs to be carefully considered.
One example is Google Maps. Right now it has privacy drawbacks, but it also generates a lot of utility for a lot of people and is relatively freely accessible for individuals. You'd want to be careful about screwing that up. For example, incentivizing Google to switch to a paid access model.
I guess part of what this EFF article is saying is: these decisions are better treated as part of privacy law / human rights, rather than economics...I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!
We did discuss this and felt that a very deep dive would be needed. (A) It's not an objective no-brainer exactly what behavior you want to disincentivize. (B) The economic impacts/consequences could be huge, so the tradeoff needs to be carefully considered.
One example is Google Maps. Right now it has privacy drawbacks, but it also generates a lot of utility for a lot of people and is relatively freely accessible for individuals. You'd want to be careful about screwing that up. For example, incentivizing Google to switch to a paid access model.
I guess part of what this EFF article is saying is: these decisions are better treated as part of privacy law / human rights, rather than economics...I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!