Well that's the real problem when you start competing with Google and the like. They're data behemoths. As long as you don't have as much data collected, they'll have a significant advantage. The solution to this is really simple and hardly conceivable at the same time: make competitively important data public. In this case, that's anonymized video browsing/viewing data. Market competition would flourish, the big guys would lose the monopoly.
>In this case, that's anonymized video browsing/viewing data
So the view count publicly available and something like the Google search analytics already available? Personalized data offers a huge competitive advantage.
I'd say the use for personal identification is cross-platform linking of users. I.e., this user on Google Search and this user on Google Maps are the same person. I agree that this is a competitive advantage, because, in the same vein, it gives the platform owners more data. Technically, anonymized cross-platform-linked data is conceivable.
I think if the legislation ball ever gets rolling two things we're likely to see, because they're low-hanging fruit, are the end of mass tracking on the internet and a meaningful shift in who controls the data gathered.
I can imagine a platform akin to internet banking where you manage your data and its usage.
Something I'd love to see is a "publication" of big-data algorithms. A private entity designs the algorithm for profit and leases it and you run it in your (trusted) environment, owning both the input and output. Nothing leaks.
>I'd say the use for personal identification is cross-platform linking of users.
Its "this person watched this, so they would also be interested in this video and this ad." You can't make this anonymous and near as useful, and it is currently YouTube and Google's premium money maker.
Most other data is already available with a little work, providing the data you describe doesn't help competition that much.
> this person watched this, so they would also be interested in this video and this ad
That's what I meant by cross-platform linking.
> You can't make this anonymous and near as useful
I argue that you can. Anonymity is about not linking you, the physical person, to your online presence. An online presence can be tracked and profiled, without the invasion of privacy. It all depends on what data is collectable and who has access to the data. An algo provider doesn't need to also control the data it is used on, it just needs access to training datasets. There are technical solutions to all these problems, but it's a political solution that's lacking.
> Most other data is already available with a little work, providing the data you describe doesn't help competition that much.
Well if it doesn't help competition, how useful can it be?
Anyone who needs more, I guess? Or, is the premise that gathering data is resource intensive (like innovation and patents for example)?
These aren't big problems, I think. The problem is that the people who hold the monopolies on data at the moment are also the people who are extremely powerful lobyists.
