"For consent to be informed, the data subject should be aware at least of the identity of the controller and the purposes of the processing for which the personal data are intended; consent should not be regarded as freely-given if the data subject has no genuine and free choice and is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment."
What happens to free choice after all people supplying our 'free' gateways and services across the Internet boldly point out to us that these services can only continue to appear to be free because our contract with them is essentially a trade of real value, not a gift. The deal proposition is simple "You can use my services if you sell me the right to use your personal data and sell it on to others and any of the derived information I can generate about you from this product and any others that you are signed up to that I also have access to.?
It is implicit in what is happening now. Anyone not aware of how a 'no user charge' business model works in the dominant economic system, and endaged in this debate, is being disingenuous.
If what you want on the Internet is a simple analogue of the newspaper advertsiing revenue model then all that is needed is for the EU and any country to pass legislation that prohibits,on pain of blocking, any site that collects any data about where, why and by whom its digital media is read. Beyond, that is, the destination IP address of the endpoint the first packet of the first page transmissio which it collects on its own home territory.
If I buy a newspaper at a vendor I do not expect to be followed and monitored by a spook as I start paging through it, nor timed as I do the crossword or how few milliseconds I dwell over the editorial on how wonderful Mr Cameron is. Refraining from doing so doesn't stop newspapers from making a profit.
Delivering an email service and internet connection at a small ISP has cost me for the past 25 years a steady 1 British Pound a month (at current forex rates)... no advertsing no email content scanning no hassle and it worked since before the worldwide web (www.) was implemented.
That's the access and the email service, a very affordable business model. Similarly running a website, having a few sponsors and a relatievly small number of hits a month on a few banners and your Profit and Loss can soon get to look quite comfortable if you have anything worthwhile to sell or say. Cheaper than print media advertising, and bigger market potential.
The issue is that OUR DATA is being stolen because in aggregate it is a valuable product in itself. The Internet is in effect its place of production. It is the factory. To the extent that you can monitor who is in the factory, what they are doing and how fast they are blinking you can add value to and create an information product.
The issue here is that when I contract with anyone for access to their service to deliver the service advertised then that service is the product I want. If the quid quo pro, in legalese 'the quantum', required by the provider of that service in order to create it is the revenue he can get from onselling or otherwise profitably using information derived from my use of the actual product I am 'buying' than it is the value of that product that must be quantized in the contract... YES! an actual monetary estimate of the projected average Gross Profit that is expected to be derived by the provider from his contract with me, based on actuarially confirmed statistics fom his historical records.
I can then weigh up, myself, if I would rather pay a £1 a month to be free of surveillance or not!!! I can then support the free market's proper functioning by contributing to the establsihment of the myriad small businesses and free actions of individual consumers upon which the 'Classical' model of liberal economics relies, instead of being forced down the gaping maw of every new information oligarch that comes along just because I want to buy a packet of pasta from my local grocery shop!!! They don't want to pay the oligrach's exorbitant ad word rates either. They would be happy with a chalk baoard and few flyers in the postboxes of the houses in their district. So would the local unemployed shop assitants, printers and delivery people. The value now being sucked out of communities by foreign ad lords, media barons and retail chains - online and bricks-and-mortar - will then circulate and stabilise local economies, local communites and local cultures. This in turn will strengthen the resiliance of our societies, economies and technology base from the effects of single large mistakes by politicians and oligarch's... as well as the odd unexpected meteorite, spell of bad weather or X-class coronal mass ejection pointed in our direction.
It is about changing the game being played, not trying to tweek the rules!
Tke it a step further. I see nothing in the legislation that addresses requiring me specific permission to the creation of derivitive information about me from seemingly innocuous sources after they have been aggregated. I can write complex SQL-statements (just like everyone else.. right? :-) ) ... I can also indulge in a bit of inferential statistical meodelling if called upon. I don't want that done to any record of any aspect of my existence unless it is in pursuit by an elected AND accountable AND recallable AND identifiable public government employee or appointee in the sole pursuit of assuring my freedoms, health and happiness.
If anyone lese wants to do anything else with data about me that they think might turn them a profit then they had better tell me in words of one syllable what their value proposition is... and write me a cheque for the balance. Every month.