An Inspiring Idea

I just read an article about how that data storage company that had personal and financial information stolen for like forty gazillion people is now charging those same people for access to information that they now need in order to protect themselves from the financial dangers of that very same data theft. Some people may find that outrageous, but I find that to be, well, kind of inspiring. Think of the revenue that can be generated if only all businesses operated in this fashion.

For example, this could lead to a whole new model for the branding of products. What if stores removed the branding information of a product, so if a product failed a consumer would have to purchase the brand and source data from the retail outlet in order to enforce the warranty? Why, that's an untapped revenue stream right there, and nothing in the Constitution says we couldn't do things that way. After time, certain brands will be known by word of mouth as having a low reputation. This should in turn lead to other consumers buying brand information and data ahead of time, before any incident of product malfunction, just to be certain they will be protected in all their purchases. So now we're talking about a growing revenue stream. This is exactly the kind of thinking we need to advance the nation's economic growth. Finding new revenue streams like this would mean that state and federal coffers could grow without raising taxes. Liberals always talk about the need to raise taxes to fund education, but this company has taken an approach that shows us no tax raises are necessary. Their approach is constitutional, good for business, good for government, and good for schools. What's not to like?

But get this: the same article I was reading said something about how congress should pass laws to make data collection companies financially responsible for loss or theft of the data they collect. That kind of simple thinking would lead to no revenue growth. It would be bad for business, bad for state and federal budgets, and bad for schools. And who knows, maybe it's even unconstitutional.

Now g-whiz, isn't it just obvious what we should be doing?