I strongly disagree - it is my data and I should be able to do whatever I, not you, want with it - even if it's something extremely stupid like publish my SSN to the internet. I would never use that right, but I will still fight for it.
(needless to say, I completely approve of the idea of government controls on what other companies can do with my data without my consent)
This is kind of like saying “it’s my kidney, and I should be able to do whatever I, not you, want with it”. At some point we just have to draw the line and say we can’t in good conscience commoditize this.
You have reality stars selling a 24/7 video feed of their life, it is pretty hard to argue that the relatively small amount of data I sell to tech giants should be illegal for me to sell.
That's an interesting point. However, reality TV is no different from biographies, which people have been commissioning since time immemorial. The reason why people don't want to ban biographies is that this market has rarely resulted in systematic exploitation of people or harm to society [1]. Moreover, what is being sold is not usually easily processable data about the star, but a persona whose main value comes from how popular the star is, rather than it being an entry in a database.
On the other hand, the main value of your meta data and social media content comes not on it's own, but as part of the larger database. Each individual person could be locally happy with the sale of data (as are sellers of organs on the black market), but globally, you quickly land in a very suboptimal nash equilibrium, which is plagued by coercive relations.
[1] Though recent trends in the reality tv market or adult streaming market are worrying.
If someone wants to sell their kidney for money, why should anybody step in to stop them? Advise them of the short-term benefits and the long-term drawbacks and let them make the decision.
Because we should try to protect people from being exploited. You can use this exact same logic to argue against minimum wage, consumer protection laws, building codes, etc.
If someone can point to tangible harm from Google having your data, comparable to subsistence wages or exploding batteries or subsistence wages, or losing an irreplaceable kidney, that would be relevant.
(needless to say, I completely approve of the idea of government controls on what other companies can do with my data without my consent)