[PCWorld]

Post your comments for How to sacrifice your online privacy for fun and profit here

[privacyusa]

How about passing a law that says my personal information - name, address, phone, email, etc. - belongs to me and is my property. It cannot be sold or transferred without my expressed permission. This permission cannot be surrendered through contract or click-wrapped agreements.

THAT would be a revolution.

[ChatTn23]

Does this seem stupid to anybody besides me. It’s bad enough that I have to try to control the cookies I collect every time I open up my browsers.

[incloud]

Protection of personal data and the requirement that consent must be given before data collection is already a fundemental right in the EU. The Data Protection Regulation, currently being debated in the European Parliament, will ensure this is law in all member states.

[incloud]

The annoying and ineffective "implied consent" cookie banners have nothing to do with getting real agreement for data collection or tracking.

[john3347]

Google is probably the biggest information collector/harvester in the world. By selling all the information collected on you, they are responsible for more spam than everybody else in the world combined. Facebook is probably running a distant second to Google in selling your private, personal information. These companies are NOT your friend.

[TreyarchMW2]

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How about passing a law that says my personal information - name, address, phone, email, etc. - belongs to me and is my property. It cannot be sold or transferred without my expressed permission. This permission cannot be surrendered through contract or click-wrapped agreements. THAT would be a revolution.

But its not yours, those are all given to you by a third party, unless you buy something or create it then it is your property.

[john3347]

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Protection of personal data and the requirement that consent must be given before data collection is already a fundemental right in the EU. The Data Protection Regulation, currently being debated in the European Parliament, will ensure this is law in all member states.

"the requirement that consent must be given before data collection"

Do you believe that this "requirement" is enforceable? Secondly, do you believe that it is being rigidly enforced? It would be a good thing, but I don't believe it can be enforced. I see a twitter logo beside your name here. How do you think twitter became a multi-million dollar company by giving away a free product???? Your personal information is their source of income. They could not survive if they had to ask you and get your permission before even collecting information on you. Don't kid yourself!

[john3347]

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How about passing a law that says my personal information - name, address, phone, email, etc. - belongs to me and is my property. It cannot be sold or transferred without my expressed permission. This permission cannot be surrendered through contract or click-wrapped agreements. THAT would be a revolution.

But its not yours, those are all given to you by a third party, unless you buy something or create it then it is your property.

[john3347]

If somebody gives you a car, or if you win cash in a lottery drawing, that is yours, you own it and no one else has rights to use or possession of the gifted item. You do not have to buy or create something as the only path to ownership.

[mck6534]

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How about passing a law that says my personal information - name, address, phone, email, etc. - belongs to me and is my property. It cannot be sold or transferred without my expressed permission. This permission cannot be surrendered through contract or click-wrapped agreements. THAT would be a revolution. But its not yours, those are all given to you by a third party, unless you buy something or create it then it is your property.

[mck6534]

Actually my name is mine, giving to me by my parents and I can change it or use any way I want. I choose where I want to live so my address is Not given to me. Different phone prefixes for different areas and sometimes you can even choose the whole number yourself. I choose who to use for email and the 'address' of my account. So, NO, they were not given to me.

[blottobot]

WOW! Am I the only one that noticed the BING ad here? Are you people asleep? The article is supposed to be about how to make money from your personal data. All I see is how to make money selling out your friends. This tactic has been used for years. How do you think pyramid schemes work, anyway? PCWorld should be ashamed.

[BearPup]

Vermont passed a law to prevent data mining by pharmaceutical companies; it outlawed pharmacies giving away so-called confidential records about what prescription medications an individual is taking. Yes, that information is routinely sold by pharmacies as a way to make money.

The pharmaceutical companies sued Vermont, saying the dating mining protection act violated their "Free Speech Rights". They won.

So now my confidential medical information is once again being sold to the highest bidder. Who needs protecting from whom? Apparently, I own nothing, so as a matter of course, I reject any attempt to get data on me. A friend tried doing a Google search on my (real) name and came up empty. I am proud of that.

[ronin7752]

I wonder how long it will take before cyber-crooks start selling fake personal data for big bucks...? Wouldn't be hard to do...

[arthurbas]

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How about passing a law that says my personal information - name, address, phone, email, etc. - belongs to me and is my property. It cannot be sold or transferred without my expressed permission. This permission cannot be surrendered through contract or click-wrapped agreements. THAT would be a revolution. But its not yours, those are all given to you by a third party, unless you buy something or create it then it is your property.

Even if I'm not the owner of my cellphone number, email, etc.. I'm the person who owns it while I have it. The companies that wants my info wants me, not the phone provider, are the selling the information to the phone, email provider or me?

I'm the person they're interested, so I need to have the right to choose if I'm need to be contacted for selling purposes or not. I want to live my life in private without receiving junk mails to my home(or junk emails) or phone calls I do not want. Every time I sit in my desk I have to spend time (that nobody pays to me) deleting Junk emails.

I'm the user, the buyer they want. They do not want the phone, or email providers.

Those companies are making money selling information without my permission or at least they need to begin to pay us a commission for every company yo sell my info or add we receive. That would be better!!

Thanks privacyusa, let's pass it to the congress!! :-)