Is Data Gathering as a Business Model Dying?

The winds of change are brewing in the data gathering world. The European Union has already passed the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). This legislation gives users the right to be forgotten, a right that allows a user to request their data is deleted from any company’s database and the company must comply or pay large fines and prevents companies from gathering data from users without explicit consent. This type of law gives power back to the user and could potentially take large amounts of revenue from big data companies.

This type of law could be passed in many other major countries around the world, notably China and the United States. If this law is passed companies such as Facebook and Google would potentially lose a massive source of revenue for them. The Alphabet Company, Google’s parent company, sent 21.2 million on lobbying the government in 2018 alone. This could be a massive endeavor for user protection in the U.S. but could be stonewalled for a long time due to the money comping out of these companies.

What do you think about the possibility of these new data laws? Would they change the way these companies operate?