BecomeMe

Companies have made a tradition of arguing it is their god-given right to make profit. That does not fit with reality.

The core principles of contract law dictate how transactions occur. When you buy something, the price on the shelf is not an "offer", but an "invitation to treat"; you make the offer when you approach the owner and say "I will pay this amount to buy this thing from you". The price on the shelf is simply the seller saying "If you offer this amount, I will most likely accept" - but the seller retains the right to refuse any offer you make.

With a website, the offer is made by the website owner at the point of entry. The offer is: "you can enter our site, free of charge!!", but then there are terms attached. The terms should only be a technicality, something like "don't be a dick while you're here, else you can be kicked out". But, instead, they have put in a second transaction, one which is akin to saying "we can rummage through your wallet and copy anything we find, and we can then sell copies of all of that, and you agree to give us that for free. Also, anything you say inside will be recorded and copied and sold in a similar manner".

This is patently bullshit. An offer is "you give us X, we give you Y" and then the terms and conditions provide the details and limitations of that core offer. If you compare it to insurance, an insurer is required to give you some sort of "key facts page", wherein they detail the key points of what they're offering you in exchange for your insurance premium (the money). There is a clear exchange. With websites and software, there is often no clear exchange beyond the use of the software being free.

And this is before you consider cunts like Microsoft, who have seen what Google and Facebook do, yet you still pay for Windows and Office 365 while they steal your data for no consideration!

It's fucking deceptive, and intentionally so. It has built up from a time when user data had no tangible value - and yet, the companies that collected this data (eg Google and Facebook) somehow managed to use this data to become amongst the wealthiest businesses in the world.

They have done this through fraudulent and unlawful means. To this date, they have not been challenged on this method. Now, we have a situation where "everyone does it" - but that doesn't make it legal, and furthermore even more people are the victim of this offense. Lawmakers are the victims. It's simply that people haven't yet realised that they're the victim, and in particular they haven't yet understood the value that is being taken.

Like I say, $50 per year, minimum. Likely far more, approaching or maybe even exceeding $1,000 per year. From everyone - and your data is more valuable if you're more publically prominent. It's fucking criminal and needs to be sorted out. You can't build a car without paying for the nuts and bolts, and as such Facebook and Google have a huge debt to pay.

Every time you receive an SMS message to verify your identity or authorise a transaction, you are confirming your phone number to multiple people, thereby giving them a fresh piece of data to sell. This doesn't make you more secure - if anything, it weakens your consumer rights, as you are explicitly authorising the transaction rather than having it processed as "cardholder not present" where the seller assumes default liability in case of fraud. Even banks are in on the game, these days, and they sell away your consumer rights while telling you it's good for you.