Nostr Web Client

#asknostr

Couldn't we make our private data part of intellectual property rights? And based on this restrict the legal use of personal information - like real Name, date of birth, insurance number, ID-number, domicil, IP-connection and more - to a absolute minimum? And whenever someone wats to store these data longer than a certain minimum (like maby 30 days), they would have to present an active personal subscription, where they pay this specific individual for the use of their data or present a way to offer granular acceptance and decline of certain data points for a specific usecase the user is requesting. Like using the date of birth, since the user requests that their followers know their birthday.

I know many business models will have to change a lot of their practices. Tracking companies can even loose their business model.

But it seems of high importance to me, in order that we can continue living in a free society.

modulo 4mo ago

I went down a different path of “if necessary”, but it underlies your question of ownership and value. Paying for the value as one would IP is an extension of the value transferred in a transaction. The less you know about the counterparty the more you will require in collateral or return for the credit risk.

The need to exchange personal information comes from incomplete transactions where credit is extended and debt comes into existence. All parties need to know each other sufficiently to extinguish the debt. Information needs to be sufficient to ensure the debt is settled with the correct person, and conversely, to find the person should the debt not be paid.

There’s no difference between P2P transactions than a loan from a bank. Yes, a bank takes as much information from you, but you know everything about the bank, too. Information is the nature of an incomplete transaction whether a loan or a deposit.

Does a bank need to know the source of your funds? Of course, not, but like having FDIC insurance in the USA, or simply a vault to hold cash, KYC is a requirement for doing business as a bank transacting in American dollars. But this is not about KYC, it is about personal information sharing requirements.

I know you probably thought my next line: bitcoin fixes this. Bitcoin’s instant transfer of value allows closure of transactions in real time. If for some reason, the transaction is purposely incomplete, such as prepaid rent or utility bills in an arrears, the need to exchange information can be reduced but not eliminated completely by using time locks with one of two multi signatures.

But again this is a function of incomplete transactions and the need to know how to recover one’s value in case of default still exists. One can avoid all of this by not using the dollar system, and not taking on debts/extending credit.

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Discussion

freemymind 🇨🇭 4mo ago

Thanks for your long response. Banking I dolnot even see as a big threat in my initial question. My main concern is really trackers and advertisement companies, on how much data they are allowed to collect and store on individuals without explicit consent.

I would argue, this should be treated in a similar way as if a nation finds spys from other countries looking for secret information. These trackers should be made illegal and not handled like legit companies. They grow on the basis of our individual weaknesses and share them for money.

modulo 4mo ago

It’s an interesting angle, forcing advertising companies and trackers in general to pay for or limit what they collect, but how would one enforce that, particularly if the company is offshore, or discerning and validating which participants consented vs. which didn’t.

Privacy is a pinnacle state, and I see it as naturally unstable. Privacy must be actively maintained. That said, I recognise people freely give it up to obtain something else (transactions, convenience, information, experience, etc.), and do so in thoughtless ways.

Here’s the special thing I particularly like about bitcoin: #bitcoin is the world-changing technology that doesn’t require giving up privacy for convenience. So let’s keep supporting and building privacy preserving tools for people so they can access bitcoin (and digital space in general) with privacy built in, in addition to fighting on other fronts as you describe (clamping down on advertising and tracking.)

freemymind 🇨🇭 4mo ago

I think it would be the best way to put companies which do not comply on a list. And every commercial relation with these companies would be illegal as compices.

And ensuring that people actively comply could be easily verifyed in that you have to opt in to every collection of data actively.

So that debault behaviour is illegal to collect anything indefnitly.