Dear Valued Framework Customer,
We are writing to inform you of a data breach at our business intelligence database provider Metabase that resulted in an attacker accessing customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses. Your information was in the database that was accessed in this breach. This breach did not include order or payment information.
Just arrived into my inbox.
There is a need though. I used to view companies as producing laptops or vehicles or whatever. From that frame of reference, there’s no need to collect this kind of data. These days I look at them as profit-producing entities. That is their main product is profit. Laptops and vehicles are temporary side effects. From this frame of reference, they need to store this data as it’s another means to produce more profit. For example by more accurately targetting their prices to maximize profit, or selling the data in the future when they can’t grow profits from their laptops. I’m convinced this is the correct frame to view the vast majority of for-profit companies because it predicts their actions much more accurately than the other one.
I get that that’s just the way it is now, but it really shouldn’t be.
I go to a store in person, buy a laptop with cash, no information required. Why does this have to be different for anything else? I purchased a laptop from Framework, because I wanted a repairable/upgradable laptop. Why should they be allowed to sell my data, why do they need a record of the IP addresses I’ve used to access their website, or keep my phone number on file, and so on?
At least here in the US there is no control of how our data is collected and sold against our will (barring some protection if you live in certain states), and then it inevitably leaks and now we have to deal with trying to not get our identity stolen and or inundated with spam and scams. It’s incredibly frustrating. From the consumer’s point of view there is no “need” for this.
From a consumer standpoint - 100%. I think the the brick-and-mortar store would also get this data if they could. This reminds me of the massive behaviour surveillance happening in grocery stores. They’ve done it for a long time but these days the latest tech allows them to record detailed stuff like how long you sit in front of a particular product before you pick it up, etc. I don’t know if they link it to identities but I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep face databases even if they don’t know the exact names for each face. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve started buying face ID data to “enrich” their datasets. If they haven’t they probably will if they think they can make more money out of it.
I agree with that as a model for prediction of behaviour, i don’t agree that there is a need.
There is obviously a want , but unless there is an existential requirement for data collection like that, the need is speculative.
I think the want tends to become a need (not for every business in every market) because of a few pressures, among which is the competitive pressure for capital. If this business won’t deliver growing profits, capital would move into another that would. Without capital, there’s no money for procuring the means to do new product. I think that gives the basic pressure for profit maximization that we see around us. It’s not universal - non-profits, private firms which don’t take outside capital whose owners are opposed to profit maximization, and some others tend to not be subject to it. So for some types of businesses I think it qualifies as need, or else they risk their survival and therefore the usually high compensation of their exec layers. I’m not married to proving it need and not want, just thought you might not have looked at it from this angle.
I have and do look at it from that angle, my point was that the need for data collection isn’t a guaranteed thing.
Even if you narrow it down to just the subset of companies for which continuous “shareholder value” is a requirement.
If it was the only avenue to profit i’d agree the need was universal, but there are other ways, some mutually exclusive.
Though i will conceded that data collection is one of the common ones.