Yes, but....
I broadly agree with Tim about what a trade is and what a market failure is, but it strikes me that there are a couple of problem areas with the Net's data-aggregators, where perhaps some regulation might be a good idea.
Firstly, Gmail (and similar). I can choose whether or not to use Google's email service, but I can't choose whether my friends do. It would surely be a perfectly reasonable move for regulators to insist on some sort of opt-out, where I could provide my email address to Google and they would then be obliged not to collate the content of emails sent by me to their users.
Secondly, constant changes to the Ts & Cs. I am perfectly OK with saying to Facebook's users, "Read the Ts & Cs when you sign up. If you don't read them, that's your look-out." But what Facebook are doing is taking users who have agreed to one lot of privacy rules and then applying a different set of rules to them, assuming that's fine as long as they send them an email telling them about the change. It is simply not reasonable to expect people to spend their days poring over changes in rules -- we want people to have some time for other activities. So how about an imposed legal maximum on the number of changes Facebook (or whoever) may make -- twice a year, say? It is also not reasonable to move privacy rules from more private to less private without the express permission of users -- if I ticked a box and clicked a button to tell Facebook they're not allowed to use my photos for purpose A, they should not be allowed to assume they can use them for purpose B without again getting me to tick a box and click a button. Allowing the likes of Facebook to change the terms of a deal after it has been made is surely a market failure.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
