Show Me the Money: How Much is Your Information Worth?

What are you worth? A provocative question, but one that has myriad answers ranging from economics to spiritual to societal. None of the answers are definitive.?

But corporations know the answer.?

Down to the penny.?

Spiritual and societal worth become philosophical concepts that defy easy definition; I value my friends, and hopefully, they value me too. How much? Can’t answer that. Same for family, kids, spouse. Spiritual worth may be considered from a traditional faith practice, or a more abstract position of self-worth. One could even ponder environmental/biological worth, and examine the interdependency of all organisms, including ourselves. Morbidly, what is the mineral value of your body, our life? Maybe $576. Or $45 million.

But what about the contributions you make to society??

Economic market-based value is a bit easier to assess, since here in the developed world we’re still a capitalist system, and markets send clear signals. You’re worth as much as an employer will pay you. The cost of something is dictated by market demand. That includes you.?

We also have stuff attached to us that has value; we own things, perhaps houses, cars, certainly clothes, and most likely we paid for them, which defined their value at the moment of purchase. But let’s get more esoteric: How much are our habits worth? How much is our information worth? What is the value of my preference for football over tennis, pizza over Chinese food, Home Depot over Bed Bath and Beyond?

If you want to know the value of a chainsaw, you go to places that sell chainsaws, and soon you’ll have some prices that will give you the range of values for a variety of saws. There are companies that sell information, so let’s ask those companies that monetize our habits, otherwise known as data: Google, Facebook, Amazon, and any other digital platform you use (though this isn’t limited to the online world): they know your value, but don’t necessarily want to share that with you, because you’ll feel either violated, taken advantage of, or both. Or perversely, you’ll feel you should be worth more!

It’s been said about our participation in the digital world, "If you're not paying for a product, then you are the product" The implication is that the digital services we use every day make money by providing personal data to advertisers who place tremendous value on our data.?

At its core, data is a resource. Throughout history, information has held value. From clandestine activity, military tactics, a variety of competitions, to strategic positioning of all kinds, the party that knows the most, that understands the playing field and adjusts their tactics to that information, will emerge on top. How your data is used and priced depends primarily on the goals of the organization.?

Companies parse the info your participation provides, slice and dice the data to useful bits assessing demography. And selling it. On any individual basis, it doesn’t seem like that much. Peak value is the data of a white male, 18-24 years old, roughly worth $1.80. Feeling worthless? The numbers add up:?

Each individual engagement in the U.S. and Canada — likes, comments, clicks — generates roughly $0.10 cents in revenue for Facebook. In 2019,?Facebook?and?Google?together earned approximately $230 billion in revenue; LinkedIn Marketing Solutions earned more than $3 billion in revenue?by providing advertisers access to their 700m + users, while?YouTube hit $6.9 billion in advertising revenue?in 2020. ?

So yeah, the numbers add up.

An argument can be made that we each should monetize a proportion of what we and our data contribute to companies’ income streams. Andrew Yang takes up this argument: He launched the?Data Dividend Project?to try to establish data-as-property rights. The idea is not without its critics.

Ultimately, the old maxim of Caveat Emptor? - “consumers beware” - still holds true; it’s up to us to be aware of informational asymmetry. By that I mean understanding that our engagements generate financial consequences.? Most of us have known this to one extent or another, and have accepted it. We value the services provided enough to pay for them with our actions, our data.?

I would love to hear from someone here that has read the terms of service in full, of this platform or any other when they opened an account. (Since I have a deep personal and professional interest in online identity protection, I absolutely did.) Or any who are surprised that these companies make money off of us. We’re not victims here; we’re active participants.