Technology

I've learned that a fancy term for the problem is "neoliberal responsibilization". When someone wants to track you, they need to your informed consent. It's your individual responsibility to make a good choice. That may seem like a nice idea, at first. But it's not how we do most other things. EG food safety. You can't use just anything as a food additive as long as you just write it on the label for "informed consent". No ordinary person has the time, knowledge, or wits to make such decisions. For the ordinary person, this is just needless bureaucracy, like clicking away cookie banners.

Knowledge about yourself is made into something almost like private property. And then - seems to be the idea - when people make their own choices without pesky government interference, great things happen. That doesn't work with property either.

There's no concern for society or progress. I am worried about tracking data being used to manipulate people. They consented, so no problem? If you are gathering anonymous data you don't even need to ask anyone. If the data pertains to a whole group of people, there is not supposed to be a problem?

Say, you belong to a vulnerable group; ethnic minority, women who have aborted, gay, trans, ... One wouldn't want a list of people who belong to such a group. But, say you want to open a shop with special foodstuffs or clothes that caters to such a group, how are you going to reach them? Not having such lists would imply a disadvantage for any minority. Saying that everyone can make their own choice in the matter is not a solution. It's just pretending the problem does not exist.

There's a certain irony in the fact that complaints about the GDPR come mostly from businesses. Usually, "neoliberal responsibilization" is to the benefit of the powerful. Foisting the lone individual with responsibility is a divide and conquer tactic. One shouldn't dismiss their criticism because of the hypocrisy. The revenue of a business becomes income for most of us, and we wouldn't want to do without their products either.

Eventually, I favor the food safety model of regulation. The focus should be on a strong regulatory body, staffed with professionals, who actually have a chance of uncovering or foreseeing harm. It should be tasked with taking a big picture view, not only with enabling individuals to guard their (mostly) petty secrets. (This does exist to some degree in the GDPR).