What if I told you I had an idea? What if that idea was to build a platform that let millions of people around the world make their own little website for free? A natural question would be how on earth I would expect to pay for it much less make any money from it.
It turns out the answer to that question is simple. You let all those millions generate content for you so that people will go to your platform. Then you contract with other, bigger companies to throw a bunch of ads up on everyone’s sites. Even better, you get a little kickback every time someone buys something from those ads. Sounds like genius right? What if I told you it gets even better? What if this platform were to collect all kinds of data about everyone using it so that you could make sure they see the ads that are most likely to get their attention? Oh, but that isn’t even everything. It turns out this platform could even get all that data and sell it to a variety of third parties. And yes, it would all be completely legal because to make use of this platform everyone would agree to a list of terms of service that would make the most experienced and conniving lawyer yank his hair out. In short, this idea is to provide a rough framework so that millions can generate tons of data that will help us sell other people’s things to them and then we even sell the data.
That is the basic model of Facebook and pretty much every major social media company. Now, depending on your perspective, this is genius, megalomaniacal, or both. What pushes it closer to the megalomaniacal end of the spectrum is the fact that as much money as this model generates (in the billions) it still apparently is not enough. Facebook and everyone else continues to seek out new and innovative ways to get you to part with your money and one of the most recent actually got them in a bit of hot water.
Where did this happen? In Illinois, which happens to have some of the toughest biometric security laws in the United States. The issue that got the attention of people there was Facebook’s use of facial recognition software. It turns out that they have started scanning and storing images of people’s faces in their servers. They do this through both the photos people upload and the new facial recognition log on options. They then cross-reference your face with others to suggest people you should tag in photos, suggest to other people they should tag you and make friend request suggestions. Not only is Facebook scanning and storing your face, not only are they using it to flood your feed with interactions you might not want, and likely doing it all to build a more complete profile so they can advertise to you even more effectively, they are doing it all without your consent.
This got a lot of people complaining and a class-action lawsuit was brought in the state of Lincoln. It was recently settled with 1.6 million users getting paid $300 each. That’s $480 million. As much as that is, Facebook operates to the tune of billions of dollars. So that is settlement may not be exactly a chump change but it isn’t breaking the bank either. Will it be enough to send a message that Facebook and others should at least ask permission first? One would hope. After all, how hard would it be to ask? Just tell people what is wanted and why and then they have the option to go along with it or not. These companies need to stop acting like they own everyone’s data.
That’s what makes TARTLE different. When you sign up with us, we don’t own your data, you do. You decide if it gets shared and why it does. You make money from it. It’s so simple, yet basic simplicity and decency are now revolutionary.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
Facebook and everyone else continues to seek out new and innovative ways to get you to part with your money and one of the most recent actually got them in a bit of hot water.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:25):
Hey Jason, do you recognize my face?
Jason Rigby (00:31):
Oh, you made a funny.
Alexander McCaig (00:34):
I look at you, but I don't recognize you.
Jason Rigby (00:36):
Yeah, you don't recognize me.
Alexander McCaig (00:38):
Hey, now [crosstalk 00:00:39] that I have seen your face, do you know this guy? Can I suggest to you...
Jason Rigby (00:43):
No. I wanted $360 for looking at my face though.
Alexander McCaig (00:45):
Oh, really?
Jason Rigby (00:46):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (00:46):
For scanning it and processing it, and not telling me you're going to do so. And then after you've done that, you offer some sort of marketing regime between people.
Jason Rigby (00:56):
Yeah. So, now we have an article. This is interesting. Facebook will pay more than $300 each to 1.6 million Illinois users in a settlement. 1.6 million Illinois users.
Alexander McCaig (01:09):
Yeah. So Illinois has one of the strongest-
Jason Rigby (01:11):
That's a state in the United States for our international listeners.
Alexander McCaig (01:14):
Yeah, Illinois, not noise, Illinois.
Jason Rigby (01:15):
Nois.
Alexander McCaig (01:17):
And for anybody that's wondering, Illinois has one of the strongest biometric security, privacy laws, anywhere in the U.S. And, when they found out that there were a bunch of people complaining that Facebook was analyzing their faces, to suggest friends and other things to other people. And they said, "Whoa, did we ever tell you, you could scan the geometry of my face?" Like, "I didn't even know you had facial recognition software, why didn't you tell me this?"
Jason Rigby (01:47):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (01:48):
And then, thing's going off. And it's like, "Oh, [inaudible 00:01:50] this is valuable, let me suggest this person to you, or suggest tagging a person in this photo." So, you've gone through scan on my photos, scanned on my faces, stored my facial geometry in your computers, and now you're going to suggest something to me. And, wait a minute, did I say... Where's the consent in this?
Jason Rigby (02:07):
This reminds me of the reCAPTCHA thing. It's just kind of the same-
Alexander McCaig (02:10):
It's 2.0. What Google did with reCAPTCHA, Facebook did with facial recognition geometry. okay, in Illinois, it's like, "No, we are not going to stand for this." And so, after there was a bunch of lawsuits that came together about it, they're like, "We need to put together a class action lawsuit."
Jason Rigby (02:22):
Yes. Six years of legal proceedings this took.
Alexander McCaig (02:26):
Why? And, Facebook could have skipped all the trouble, the lawyers, Illinois, everybody, if we just took the consentful approach. If we were just upfront and say, "We got a TARTLE data packet here, we want to buy pictures of your face, so we can analyze it." I want you to take your face at all these different angles, and we're going to scan it and we're going to use that for these purposes.
Jason Rigby (02:48):
But, I think if we look at this in a macro view, this is the problem that we're facing, when we look at data and ownership. And, where does the ownership lie? And, who owns it?
Alexander McCaig (03:03):
I think just because it's on Facebook service, they think they own it.
Jason Rigby (03:05):
Yes or [crosstalk 00:03:07] anyone.
Alexander McCaig (03:07):
Well, not anyone. Let's think about TARTLE. When you put your data on our servers, we don't own it, it's your data. You're the only one with the key to decrypt and unlock that data. We can't do it. We don't own it. We're just like a shell of a house for you to come in and put all your shit in. You know what I mean?
Jason Rigby (03:25):
Yeah, no, I agree. A 100%.
Alexander McCaig (03:26):
Except the house is fortified like the Pentagon.
Jason Rigby (03:29):
Why do you think that they feel like they have this assumption, great word, of owning the data?
Alexander McCaig (03:38):
Honestly, I really don't know. Its because, then I would be assuming. I think because it's on their servers and they've gone through the thing saying, "Well, you've signed our terms and conditions." "You've signed our privacy policy." They just think they can do whatever sort of research, ad hoc on it. But again, people don't read the terms and conditions. People aren't learned enough, a large majority of us on contract law to go through this. So, when you start... And, all they see is like, "You analyzed my face and you didn't ask me." The biggest solve here Jason, is just to ask the person, "What do you need?" "This." "Okay, what are you going to do with it?"
Jason Rigby (04:19):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (04:19):
"Oh, all right, fine, yeah." You [crosstalk 00:04:22] going to allow me to use Facebook easier, because it suggests who I tag.
Jason Rigby (04:25):
Yeah. And, the sad part about this lawsuit is, Facebook's looking at it as... Or any tech company when they look at lawsuits, and they do this ahead of time. What's the risk and reward on it? And then, the article said, this is chump change for them. So they're like, "Oh, okay, how much did we make off of having all these facial recognition?" "Okay, if we do get in lawsuits, are we still profitable?"
Alexander McCaig (04:47):
And, it's just Illinois though.
Jason Rigby (04:48):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (04:50):
Come on. Facebook literally runs social media of the globe.
Jason Rigby (04:55):
The globe. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (04:57):
They're analyzing a billion faces, if not more. It's nuts.
Jason Rigby (05:02):
Yeah. And, I want to get back to data ownership real quick, because I think this is important for people to understand the sovereignty that they've given away whenever they're allowing them to scan their faces, or put their thumb print in, or whoever it may be. You know like Apple has that, where they scan your face, they have the thumb on Google phone. I mean, you're looking more, and more, and more with these social media companies finding new ways to grab data from you. So, sovereignty-
Alexander McCaig (05:34):
To monetize [inaudible 00:05:35]-
Jason Rigby (05:35):
Yes, to monetize.
Alexander McCaig (05:36):
And as a collective, all of us have given them 35 billion dollars. We all did that. What you get? You got a free system to share pictures and write comments. What a joke. So, I can message people and have a business page, and upload my pictures and put metadata on it. That a lots to 35 billion dollars. I don't get one cut of it, even because you're advertising all of it off of my back.
Jason Rigby (06:08):
Yeah. I mean you just-
Alexander McCaig (06:10):
Wait. Hold on a second. We took everything.
Jason Rigby (06:12):
I want people to think of it this way, because this is very simple. Okay. So, you're going to start a business, but you're not going to create the website. You're not going to put any of the content on the website. You're not going to do any of the marketing. You're going to let your customers do all that for you. And after they build it for you, then you're going to turn around and remarket to them, and sell products and services from other companies while they're continuing to build your business.
Alexander McCaig (06:42):
I know... This reminds me a awful lot of how German factories operated in the early 40s.
Jason Rigby (06:50):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (06:50):
Work hard, you get a bunch of stamps. We'll send you on vacation as you build these roads and these cars, and you can drive the car that you built there.
Jason Rigby (06:56):
I think it was [THORT 00:06:57], T-H-O-R-T, was the system that was created for that.
Alexander McCaig (07:00):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (07:01):
Or you're Jewish, so we could kill you or you could come work for free to build this road.
Alexander McCaig (07:07):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (07:08):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (07:08):
You know what I mean? It's like, we'll either kick you off WhatsApp-
Jason Rigby (07:11):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:11):
... or you accept our terms and conditions.
Jason Rigby (07:15):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (07:16):
Something is amiss here with the sovereignty and-
Jason Rigby (07:21):
Excuse me, sir, that's the first time I've ever-
Alexander McCaig (07:23):
You're excused, you never sneeze. [inaudible 00:07:25] thing.
Jason Rigby (07:24):
I never sneeze on a podcast and I did.
Alexander McCaig (07:26):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (07:26):
I tried to go away from the mic.
Alexander McCaig (07:27):
You're letting all the bullshit come out of you.
Jason Rigby (07:30):
I need to see a whole lot more than that.
Alexander McCaig (07:32):
You must be really-
Jason Rigby (07:33):
Probably about five... How much did they pay?
Alexander McCaig (07:35):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (07:35):
Not that many sneezes.
Alexander McCaig (07:37):
You must be really allergic to your own bullshit. But, all of these are metaphorically akin to one another. And, sovereignty and respect for the individual is, its missing. Just because someone signed something or did something, and they truly didn't know what they were signing, doesn't mean you should take advantage of it. It doesn't hurt you. It'll cost you less truthfully, to just go to them and be like, "Can we do this?" "Yes or no." And the person asks, "Why you're going to do it?" And you say, "This is why we're going to do it." "Great, thank you for offering me a new service, and thank you for telling me and giving me the option." But, there was no option. They just came in and said, "Analyze all the faces, do this specific thing." "Great, good for us, now, we have everybody's facial geometry."
Jason Rigby (08:18):
Yeah. And, when we incentivize someone, like TARTLE, we incentivize a person to exchange [inaudible 00:08:26].
Alexander McCaig (08:25):
We don't incentivize [crosstalk 00:08:26]. The buyer incentivizes that person.
Jason Rigby (08:27):
Yeah, the buyer. That's a great analogy.
Alexander McCaig (08:28):
Because, we're not handling that money.
Jason Rigby (08:30):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (08:30):
Okay. We have to be abundantly clear about that, but go ahead.
Jason Rigby (08:33):
No, so whenever I'm asked to do something, it's not just you asking me to do something, you're also incentivizing me. And to me, that shows mutual respect.
Alexander McCaig (08:46):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (08:46):
To me, as a human
Alexander McCaig (08:47):
Respect for you as human and respect for the value of the thing you created.
Jason Rigby (08:50):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (08:51):
Shouldn't both of those match? If they don't, something's amiss, it's out of balance. Systems have to have balance. If they don't have balance, your cantilever bridge is going to fall, right. That's what we're looking at here. You're not building a bridge properly, it's unstable foundation. And, this sort of transaction that's happening on Facebook with Facebook's users is an unbalanced transaction. That's what's happening. Someone's reaping way more value than the value someone gets of just adding friends, putting photos up and getting ads delivered to them. The value set is not there, it's not a really respected value set. And it's not just Facebook, it's so many other systems that have copied that model. And we just use them, because they're a name that we can focus on. People are used to it. So, we're not bashing Facebook. It's just, fundamentally that path that they've taken has been mirrored by so many others.
Jason Rigby (09:47):
And when you talk about mirror, because I love that word when you're... It's just this whole, like a new... Let's say TikTok comes out or these new social media companies come out, and then they're mirroring what was successful off of the other ones. So they're saying, "Okay, well, how can we get users?" "How can we get time on site?" And then, how can we advertise to them so we can have people buy ads from us?"
Alexander McCaig (10:14):
So we can go back to our investors and say, "Look at the ROI we got."
Jason Rigby (10:16):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (10:17):
Not, look how ethically we built this out, made sure everyone was in a completely balanced system and look how we've elevated both parties.
Jason Rigby (10:24):
And I want to encourage and we'll end in this, we have the Big 7 that we talk about and I'm going to go through them real quick, climate stability, educational access, human rights, global peace, public health, government and corporate transparency, and economic equalization. All seven of those, TARTLE is looking in that and saying, "This is how we're going to help humanity and we believe that data will do that." And so, we've made that a priority with TARTLE.
Alexander McCaig (10:51):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Rigby (10:51):
And, I know other companies were asking to join and come with us, and exchange data for those priorities. Why is it so important? Alex, especially you as the CEO of TARTLE. Why is it so important for us to focus on these Big 7?
Alexander McCaig (11:03):
Well, these Big 7 are the... They require the collective power of all of us. And, any great corporation, and I say great in terms of size, economic value that they've created, have relied heavily on knowledge and big data. So, they know what it means to have huge swathes of information to come together, to analyze something and trying to come to an answer. And so, if you really want to start focusing on the largest problems that affect everyone, well, then you're going to need everybody's information to do so, so we can come together as a collective resource to do that. So, the reason we guide and we champion people in businesses to take that effort is because, these are things that affect us all, regardless of race, religion, culture, background, demographic, socioeconomic status. It doesn't matter. All these are going to affect us. So we need to come in the collective, realize the power in that collective of our data and solve these problems that we have created.
Alexander McCaig (12:02):
It's not like one of those things like an asteroids coming towards earth, and we just send a bunch of nukes out there and try to nuke the crap out of it. We couldn't account for that, but what's happening right now that faces us in our future, these are things we can account for, that we're responsible for. And, that responsibility of collective data ownership and sharing towards these Big 7, that is the focus I specifically have. Our company has, our culture has, and that's something we're trying to share with the world because we need to take responsibility for it. And, we can solve that through data. And, we know it can be solved.
Jason Rigby (12:38):
Responsibility, that's a great word.
Alexander McCaig (12:39):
Yeah. Responsibility.
Jason Rigby (12:41):
Thanks Alex.
Alexander McCaig (12:41):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
