There probably needs to be additional safeguards in place for tech companies who claim a significant share of a market space. For instance, a small company, having 1% market share should have a bit less restriction on it than another company that owns 99% of the market share, and would be considered monopolistic in its coverage.
That said, for a company with significant share of a market (ie: Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, etc) there should not be fine print terms of service that activates as soon as the customer uses said product, platform, etc. where the customer automatically and oftentimes unknowingly opts-in to invasive data collection without recourse or alternative. If the company is so large that it dominates a market, and the customer cannot effectively engage a competitor of said company, that company should have options available to the customer at signup, allowing the customer to opt-out of private data collection.
If service is diminished because of it, or more ads show up, or other degraded features are in place to compensate for the lost data collection, at least the consumer has a choice in the matter. Indiscriminate data collection in order to build a physical, psychological, or talent profile, (like measuring how fast one can complete a visual security puzzle, or how many words they type per minute, or inventory collections that are done by attempting to wirelessly connect with every wi/fi enabled appliance, vehicle, and product around the home and neighbor’s homes, collecting network and identification information on them as well. or machine MAC addresses, GPS and geolocation data collection and storage, which have NOTHING to do with the company’s products are offerings, should be prohibited, and not be assumed as granted by the consumer by agreeing to any terms of service. It is one thing to collect info on a user in order to provide a secure and reliable product or service experience DURING THE
PRODUCT USAGE SESSION – it is entirely another thing to take that data and upload it to a remote cloud server, to be saved indefinitely in order to build an information profile on that user AFTER THE PRODUCT USAGE SESSION HAS ENDED. Keeping the data AFTER it is useful to the user session is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, regarding illegal searches and SEIZURES, and the right of the American people to be secure in their “papers, and effects”. There must be a line drawn somewhere on data collection and the subsequent profiting of that remotely-stored data. The data necessarily collected must be discarded after the session has ended and other data which is not directly needed for the MINIMUM requirements of creating or support a customer’s session, should not be collected at all. Currently, the only line being drawn is – nothing.
When customers agree to use the product or service, and they log in, automatically signaling that any data can be collected at any time for any reason and sold to any other third-party data company – this must end, and defined rules must be put into place that will allow companies to collect relevant product- and service-related data, while at the same time, allow customers’ private data to be safeguarded against monopolistic-level companies who attempt to build value in customer info by building complete profiles on them, which have nothing to do with the product or service that they are offering.
It is one thing, where there are hundreds of small competitive companies out there, and half collect a lot of data on users and the other half offers products and services that collect very little. In this case, the consumer has a choice in the market and can select based on personal comfort levels of data collection. It is entirely different when two companies, like Microsoft and Apple, collect massive amounts of very personal information on their customers and build profiles on them, and because they dominate a market by 95%+ (ie: in Operating Systems for PCs), the customers have very little alternative to shop elsewhere for an OS provider – there only choice is: 1) Extensive Data Collection or 2) Do without a personal computer. This must change.
In Summary: Any and all “terms of service” are instantly NULL AND VOID if it calls for, or attempts to participate in overriding the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, protecting that American People from illegal searches and seizures. And the libelous actions taken in this invasive data collection should be considered as harmful and damaging behavior taken by the company of said products and services, against its customers/users.
===SIMILAR DATA PRIVACY COLLECTIONS POLICY SUGGESTION===
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