Data misuse is so much bigger than Facebook, by Ethan Zuckerman.

I’ve referred to this bargain, in which people get content and services for free in exchange for having persuasive messages psychographically targeted to them, as the “original sin” of the internet. It’s a dangerous and socially corrosive business model that puts internet users under constant surveillance and continually pulls our attention from the tasks we want to do online towards the people paying to hijack our attention. It’s a terrible model that survives only because we haven’t found another way to reliably support most internet content and services — including getting individuals to pay for the things they claim to value…

Users of the internet have been forced into a bargain they had no hand in negotiating: You get the services you want, and platforms get the data they need. We need the right to opt out of this bargain…

hat-tip Scott of the Pacific