Companies with something to sell want to be able to target individuals with their advertising. Companies that gather an audience (like Google) want to know everything about you. What if your data had the same kind of DRM as a digital download from iTunes.
It's a pretty simple idea, really. Right now, when you register with the New York Times or Orkut, you submit a profile that they can use at their will. Orkut's terms of use state:
By submitting, posting or displaying any Materials on or through the orkut.com service, you automatically grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicenseable, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, publicly perform and display such Materials.What if I could do to Orkut (or the Times) what the iTunes Music Store does to me? They could use my data only for Orkut's business (and perhaps two other partners). That data could only be used in a campaign ten times. I could choose to change the terms of this license, or to revoke it completely, at any time and with no notice. If they somehow manage to lose my data, that's too bad.
