The action announced on 5 July 2022 by Meta-Facebook against subjects accused of data-scraping (the automated collection of information published by users of their platforms) highlights a real problem, the indiscriminate abuse of information that is actually freely available (not only ) on social platforms. However, it reinforces concerns about the actual “ownership” of user content and data. More and more people are confined in a gilded cage or, depending on the prospects, in a “fishing reserve”, at the exclusive exclusive disposal of those who have the keys to the lock, or the control of the perimeter which is accessed only by those entitled .
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Meta’s judicial initiative is directed against two subjects: a company that offers data-scraping services, allowing its customers to extract information from the (public) profiles of users and a person who has created a site in which it systematically reproduces the contents normally only available to Instagram users.
Meta justifies its action because – always reads in the announcement above – “industry leader in taking legal action to protect people from scraping and exposing these types of services, which provide scraping as a service across multiple websites” and states that “Protecting people against scraping for hire services, operating across many platforms and national boundaries, also requires a collective effort from platforms, policymakers and civil society and is needed to deter the abuse of these capabilities both among those who sell them and those who buy them “. In other words, the press release continues, the reason why the multinational has decided to “sue” is to protect people from data accumulation practices implemented by those who “makes scraping available to individuals and companies that otherwise would not have the capabilities “.
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Therefore, Meta does not complain about the “what” – that is the profiling itself or the economic exploitation of the contents – but rather about the “who” carries out such actions. According to this approach, accumulating and profiling data on individuals appears acceptable but only if Meta takes care of it. Conversely, this cannot be allowed when someone else wants to do the same, but without having invested a cent on the system that allows you to create a data-lake, or rather, a fishing reserve, where you can only sail your fishing boats and lay out the own seines.
If, however, this is indeed the case then two questions should (naively) be asked. The first is because, if the content and data made public by users are their property, only Meta should be able to take advantage of what users voluntarily make available. The second is because other subjects, other than Meta, should be prevented from doing the same freely.
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The answer (which applies to both questions) cannot be the one provided by the company and summarized in wanting to protect people. If so, in fact, then the entire platform should be designed not to profit from profiling but as WikiTribune: “a place where advertisers do not make the decisions, data is not sold, and where the user does not the algorithm decides what to see “.
Instead, it seems more reasonable to explain Meta’s choice with the desire to prevent others from parasitically exploiting information that, in theory, should belong only to those who publish it (i.e. users) but which in fact and by contract can actually be used also and only. from the platform. Not, therefore, protection of people but of their own economic interests. Or, in a more palatable way from the point of view of public relations, protection of one’s own economic interests through the protection of people’s rights.
But what rights are we talking about and, above all, who should actually protect them?
Rivers of ink have been spilled on the dangers of profiling and the unscrupulousness of commercial practices based on the “data for services” model. Much less has been written about the inaction of the authorities who should — they do — protect the rights in question.
If data-scraping is illegal because it infringes people’s rights – and it is – then it shouldn’t be a private company doing the public function of protecting users. Likewise, if certain automated personal data collection and analysis practices are illegal, it should be independent authorities – not just those over personal data, but also market and communications regulators – to intervene. And they should do it in a structural way, instead of limiting themselves to measures, such as the one recently issued in Italy on Google Analytics that are so reminiscent of the parable of the beam and the straw.