Re: <nettime> paying users for their data

[Flick Harrison <flick@flickharrison.com>]

I think the market vale of all that time the users are spending on
Facebook is actually zero, since that's what Facebook is paying for it
right now.

More dangerously, Facebook could counter by arguing that they have
created free infrastructure for organizing gatherings, publicizing
products and events, keeping in touch with loved ones (services which
previously cost money, eg long distance phone bills) etc and submit
the market value of those services (what would it have cost to build
a website and gather all your friends' contact info seven years ago,
in man-hours?). Then they could maybe write it off as promotional
giveaway, since the value of their services might be over and above
the cost of producing it?

Once this market value was assessed, tax agencies could begin taxing
users for receiving it. I mean legally, anything you receive in kind
is taxable. I dare anyone here to go in with a tax lawyer and insist
that your national revenue agency issue a written statement declaring
that free online services fall outside the tax code. If you had to
declare that these services were provided in exchange for personal and
/ or business and / or customer data, maybe you wouldn't have to value
those commodities because the tax lawyers would only care that you had
paid something...

PS - An AOL case was settled for $15M when the "volunteers" who
moderated their online communities sued for minimum wage back pay.
	
http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/aol_settled_with_unpaid_volunt.php?page=all


-- 
* WHERE'S MY ARTICLE, WORLD? http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flick_Harrison 

* FLICK's WEBSITE: 
http://www.flickharrison.com

??? Grab this Headline Animator




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