WHEN you scan a loyalty card, use a discount code online, or let your phone’s GPS log your commute, you are not sharing much. But somewhere, a company you have never heard of is combining all of it, and what it knows about you now is something you never agreed to share with anyone.

Oligarchy means rule by the few, in the interest of the few. We recognise it in politics. We have not yet learned to recognise it in the invisible infrastructure that governs everything we do online, where a small number of companies have accumulated more usable knowledge about ordinary people than any government in history, and where the laws written to protect you were written to protect them instead.

The data broker industry is this oligarchy. These companies harvest credit card swipes, loyalty scans, GPS pings and purchase histories, package them into dossiers and sell access to anyone willing to pay. The industry generates $200 billion annually and its greatest political achievement is not avoiding regulation but shaping the regulation to serve as a shield, and the shield is privacy self-management. This is oligarchy by design.

Laws like Europe’s GDPR and America’s CCPA grant individuals the right to opt out of data collection and........

© Dawn