Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Sherman, Mr. Chan, I would like to move away from the sensational and scandalous side of the problem, while not understating how important and how serious it is.
So I would like to do a familiarization exercise with you on the situation at its most basic, so that people can really understand what we are talking about. Later, we will get back to the matter of the end user, Cambridge Analytica.
As a starting point, let me put a very simplistic deduction to you. It would seem naïve to me to think that Facebook has invested hundreds of millions of dollars simply to let people use an album—a word that the older ones among us will understand—an electronic album in this case, containing photographs of one's daily relationships and activities. It is an effective means of communication and you do not need to buy stamps or talk directly to other people.
Would a company invest hundreds of millions of dollars simply so that people can chat among themselves? I do not feel that that can be the ultimate goal of such an investment. The actual goal would be to have people participating in activities in a public forum, and, as a result, to gain access to a significant amount of not only public information, but information of all kinds, including about behaviour, material possessions, and so on. In my opinion, that has value and it is a product that can be sold.
Here is my first question. How do you determine the threshold at which private information becomes public information?