It’s possible that you don’t follow Norwegian politics particularly closely. Vivaldi is headquartered in Oslo, so you won’t be surprised to learn that we pay close attention to what happens in our peaceful nation and usually sensible Parliament.
Therefore, we were so shocked that we nearly dropped our lingonberries in a fjord when our minister of finance, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, announced that he wishes to establish a global tax on personal data, inspired by Norwegian rules on resource rent tax.
Read about the proposal in Norwegian.
This proposal is equivalent to buying carbon credits to save oneself from the climate crisis while continuing to fly private jets around the world.
We agree with Vedum that some individuals have become richer than countries. The problem isn’t only that they’ve become so rich; it’s that the companies that have made these individuals so rich can set the agenda for how the whole world functions.
Big Tech has the ability to make us change our behavior—not just by getting us to buy a different type of toothpaste—but by getting us to vote differently in an election or to dislike certain groups of people. This is because they know everything about us, and they control not only the information we receive but also how we consume it.
If tech giants’ use of personal data is to be taxed in the same way as companies exploiting natural resources (the concept of resource rent tax), politicians will be doing us a huge disservice. The proposal seems like the path of least resistance in the fight to balance the power Big Tech has acquired.
In plain English, Vedum would be peeing in his pants to stay warm. Governments must protect us from intrusive snooping by tech giants, not just find ways to tax them.
Our great fear if this proposal goes into effect is that politicians will be satisfied with “at least we got some tax money”, and subsequently won’t fight the battle that actually needs to be fought. The way we should tame Big Tech and ensure that it’s not just a few companies setting the agenda is not a question of tax, but rather what tech companies should be allowed to collect and how they can use it.
Personal data is not a natural resource that any company should be allowed to exploit in the way Big Tech does today. By taxing the use of personal data, our government sends the message that the way giants exploit data is deemed acceptable, leaving us in the exact same place: a few behemoths at the top, with more power than most individual countries.
Politicians must grab the bull by its horns, put on some dry pants, and step up to fight for a better web. Banning profiling is what’s needed.
