When Data Becomes a Product: Privacy, Cybersecurity, & the Economics of Information

Key Takeaways

• Privacy Frames Control, Not Value: Consent and disclosure govern how data is used but leave ownership and economic worth undefined.
• Cybersecurity Protects Economic Assets: Security investments primarily safeguard data as a valuable corporate asset rather than individuals as stakeholders.
• Custodianship Replaces Ownership: Organizations are treated as data custodians while individuals remain outside the economic relationship data enables.
• Security Enables Data Commoditization: Strong controls make data more durable, reusable, and valuable over time.
• The Core Risk Is Structural, Not Technical: The greatest vulnerability lies in unacknowledged economic extraction rather than misuse or breach.

Deep Dive

Data is a constant subject of discussion in the context of security. Custody of personal data is heavily regulated, and systems are designed to protect anonymity, even though it can never be fully guaranteed. Security breaches are costly, not only because of the breach itself, but because of the scrutiny and liability that follow. As a result, privacy has increasingly become a value proposition for products and services that collect and retain personal information.

Yet while privacy and security dominate the conversation, this data-protective discourse largely avoids a more fundamental question: what is the economic reality of data itself?

That question is typically addressed through the lens of privacy. Modern frameworks emphasize user consent, disclosures, and the ability to opt out of certain forms of data collection or processing. In theory, these mechanisms provide control. In practice, they shift the burden of risk management onto users while leaving the underlying economic value of data collection untouched. Privacy governs how data may be used, but remains largely silent on who owns it, or what it is worth.

Organizations assume the role of data custodians through user consent and are treated as holders of a valuable commodity. Regulatory frameworks reinforce that responsibility, but rarely establish ownership or address how value is extracted from the data itself. Individuals are asked to manage risk through settings, policies, and participation choices, yet are never treated as owners of the commodity they provide or stakeholders in the economic outcomes it enables.

Cybersecurity is often framed as a means of protecting individuals from harm. In practice, it functions primarily to protect the data itself. Organizations invest heavily in security controls because the data they collect is sensitive, regulated, and economically consequential. Breaches matter not only because privacy is violated, but because valuable assets are exposed, compromised, or lost.

Security, however, does not imply obscurity or limitation. Data can be well protected while still being extensively analyzed, aggregated, and repurposed. The distinction is rarely made explicit. As a result, security measures are often interpreted as signals of restraint, encouraging consent by implying that data will remain contained, a technical guarantee of safety, misread as an economic or behavioral guarantee.

This framing further reinforces data’s status as a corporate asset. Stronger controls around collection, storage, and access make data more durable, portable, and reusable. Security enables long-term retention and secondary use, conditions under which data compounds in value over time. In this sense, cybersecurity does not challenge data commoditization; it operationalizes it.

What cybersecurity rarely interrogates is whether the underlying accumulation of data is justified, or who ultimately benefits from its protection. Data is secured, preserved, and leveraged, while the individuals who generate it remain outside the economic relationship that security exists to protect.

Taken together, privacy regulation, user consent, and cybersecurity controls form a coherent system. They manage risk, enforce custodianship, and reduce harm. What they do not do is acknowledge the role data plays as an economic asset. This omission is not accidental, but it is consequential.

Data does not need to be bought or sold to function as a commodity. It becomes one through accumulation, abstraction, and reuse. Once collected, data is aggregated, correlated, and repurposed across systems and contexts, often far removed from the circumstances under which it was generated. Its value increases with scale, persistence, and distance from its source.

This is the blind spot. Regulation treats data as a liability to be contained, individuals experience it as exposure to be managed, and markets treat it as value to be extracted. Each perspective is internally consistent, yet none fully accounts for the others. The result is an economic system in which data produces measurable value without a corresponding framework for ownership, participation, or accountability.

The language of privacy and security helps sustain this gap. Consent authorizes collection without pricing it. Security protects value without disclosing who benefits from it. Custodianship is enforced, while ownership is left undefined. The system functions smoothly precisely because these questions remain unasked. As long as each holder is in compliance with the necessary regulations and requirements, the value creation continues.

Until the economic reality of data is acknowledged, efforts to strengthen privacy or security will continue to address symptoms rather than structure. The most significant risk is not merely that data is breached or misused, but that it is systematically extracted and leveraged without recognition of the economic relationships that extraction creates. And without definition, or a holistic understanding of the whole, that blindspot creates a vulnerability.

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