The law needs to put the consumer first (not the companies)
This is what I would like to see enshrined in consumer law:
- Whatever the promises around privacy, etc... when you buy a device (piece of software, video game, etc...), those promises must be held for the life of the device - regardless of any other factors.
- It is illegal to insert less-favourable terms as part of a software update.
- If for any reason those promises are reneged upon, the user has the right to a full refund, regardless of age or condition, at the greater of either the original purchase price or current price (to account for inflation and needing to replace the device with a similar alternative),
What that means, in short, is that if I buy an internet connected device and the manufacturer promises to collect only anonymised data and to never share that with any other parties then not only can they never start collecting identifiable data, if they are bought out by another company, that new owner can't either and no future software update can ever force my consent.
In a similar vein, I think that when one company buys another, all historical, identifiable customer data should be sanitised. I appreciate that that may be problematic and even unreasonable in some instances.
Take the following (simplistic) scenario for example:
1. I sign up with Australian telco.
2. Australian telco promises to never disclose my data to anyone, except where required by law.
3. Australian telco is bought by US telco.
4. All collected data on me is now legally available to the US government.
Ignoring the possibility that my data is already slurped by the NSA, this kind of thing happens all the time - Optus in Australia was bought by SingTel - I never signed up to have my details available to this Singaporean company. Even if I had canceled my account with Optus prior to the buy-out, my historical data would still be available to them.
Likewise, if I allow a company I like, with good business practices to have some of my data, I should have some rights when a company I do not like and with bad business practices buys them out.