This idea of royalty payouts for data use has floated around for a bit, given the billions that Facebook makes selling ads based on the data you provide via your profile and browsing history. When we asked a law school professor about how this type of payout would work, we were told, in so many words, it wouldn't.

"You can't control data," Nancy Kim, of the California Western School of Law told my my coworker Edgar Alvarez. "It's not like I give out something tangible and I say every time you rent that tangible thing out, you give me a royalty, a certain payment."