What streaming and SaaS subscriptions collect, with institutional sources

Two kinds of sources do most of the work here: Pew Research surveys of consumer attitudes, and Mozilla's per-product privacy reviews.

Pew Research Center's recurring privacy surveys document what consumers know and feel about data collection.

Pew: "A majority of Americans (79%) report concern about how companies use the data they collect about them, and 81% believe the potential risks of companies' data collection outweigh the benefits." — Pew Research Center. (2019). "Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information."

Mozilla's Privacy Not Included project publishes per-product privacy reviews that document what each subscription service collects, who it shares with, and whether minimum security standards are met. The reviews are publicly searchable at privacynotincluded.org and have repeatedly flagged major streaming and SaaS providers for excessive collection relative to the service being delivered.

The academic privacy literature provides framework. Solove's "taxonomy of privacy" in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review is the most cited modern analytical framework:

Solove: "Privacy is a concept in disarray. Nobody can articulate what it means. As one commentator has observed, privacy suffers from an embarrassment of meanings." — Solove, D. J. (2006). "A Taxonomy of Privacy." University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 154(3), 477–564.

For the consumer, three practical points follow from the literature: (1) self-reported concern is high but behavior change is rare ("privacy paradox" documented across Pew surveys), (2) data collection in subscription services is core to the service, not an add-on, (3) ad-supported tiers consistently collect more than ad-free tiers.

References

• Pew Research Center. (2019). "Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control."
• Solove, D. J. (2006). U. Pa. L. Rev., 154(3), 477–564.
• Mozilla Foundation. Privacy Not Included (project, ongoing). privacynotincluded.org.

Related: Streaming ad data · Enshittification · Attention economy