Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses today.
It's very interesting testimony. You indicated, Ms. Stoddart, that we live in the age of big data, and I think it's actually remarkable. Mr. Angus talked about the short time period in which this has evolved. I think companies have been studying consumer behaviour for generations. They test-market things, and in fact, Peterborough was long a test market community for various products. They don't do that much anymore, because they are working off data that they are actually gleaning.
You talked about the algorithms and so forth that they use to determine consumer approval or consumer likes and dislikes. You also talked about how Canadians, but also people around the world, give this information away freely, and about actual informed consent.
It seems to me that when you go to sign up for any of these sites—and I've signed up for them myself—they have a very long legal agreement that I would argue is beyond the comprehension of many people using the sites, especially young people, especially very young people. Should there be almost a disclaimer that says, “We are going to study what you are doing. We are going to note where you go. We're going to use these observations to report back to firms that will pay us for this information. Do you consent to that?”
Would that be a real simple way of putting it out in just basic English as to what their end is? We know what people's ends are. If you go to Facebook, it's one of the greatest communication tools. YouTube and so forth, these are incredible tools. Frankly, like a lot of people, I really like them. But their end in providing it is that they are gaining value out of it, correct?
It's not well understood, the value they're gaining from people. You indicated this information, big data, is something people are giving away freely. It's not being resold freely or repackaged freely.