Should companies be required to pay customers when they misuse location data?

Corporate fines are priced in; customer payments are not. When a data broker gets caught selling location histories, the penalty goes to the government and the company treats it as the cost of a profitable quarter. The users whose clinic visits were sold get a press release. A mandatory payment flips the incentive: every record collected becomes a potential liability owed to a real person, which makes the CFO ask whether hoarding location data is worth it. The FTC's Outlogic order banned sales and ordered deletion, but deletion after the sale is closing the barn door. Payment prices the harm at the point of collection, before the harm happens. Companies respond to liabilities on the balance sheet faster than to lectures in consent decrees. If we want less location harvesting, make each harvested record expensive.