How Do You Value Data? A Reply To Jaron Lanier’s Op-Ed In The NYT

Carl Szabo

Former Vice President & General Counsel

Tech Liberation Front

Shadow prices can also be calculated through surveys, which is where they get controversial. Depending on how the question is worded, users willingness to pay for privacy can be wildly variable. Trade association NetChoice worked with Zogby Analytics to find that only 16 percent of people are willing to pay for online platform service. Strahilevitz and Kugler found that 65 percent of email users, even though they knew their email service scans emails to serve ads, wouldn’t pay for alternative.