How to Regain Control Over Your Data
No longer must we, the users, accept the terms and conditions of the contracts apps and platforms put in front of us. Instead, we require them to sign our terms and conditions.
Frank H. McCourt Jr. is the founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty.
Michael J. Casey is a journalist, podcaster, media leader and the chairman of Consensus by CoinDesk.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which compelled the “Baby Bell” telephone networks to allow competing services to operate over their lines, included a less well-known provision that has proved transformative: that customers be allowed to keep their telephone numbers when changing providers.
This modest clause helped break the network effect that gave the regional, fixed-line telephone companies a stranglehold over their markets. In so doing, it decentralized the U.S.’s information infrastructure at a pivotal moment and unleashed a powerful wave of digital innovation.