Personal Data for Sale Privacy from Companies6/8/2000; 1:23:59 PM "From now on, when those scurvy dog Internet marketers want our personal and private information, maybe we should charge them for it. That ought to apply the brakes to the Net's privacy problem.... 'It's time for us as consumers to monetize our data,' says Charles Jennings, co-author of a new book on Internet privacy, The Hundredth Window. 'Think of this data as real money, because everybody in business does.'"I could get behind this. Rational laws could be written to enforce this. As a side-effect, by training people to think of personal data as valuable, and as their own data belonging to them, we'd go a long way towards winning the privacy war on any number of other fronts as well. After all, if you don't want to sell... don't. Works for me.I think most of us could be convinced to sell our data to some people, esp. if we could be assured those people wouldn't illegally share it. But I have a hard time believing we'll get thousands of dollars for it, unless the laws made to enforce whatever system would be created ensured strong and vigorous competition.