>I'm sorry the analogy is totally flawed. On one hand you have something consumable: food, on the other side that can be made eternal: data.
You're not understanding the analogy. What does a user get out of using Google's services? They get access to a suite of products (search, email, cloud storage, online productivity apps, videos, and so on) that are maintained by a rather expensive group of employees and run on a rather expensive collection of hardware. When you use those services you pay for them by letting Google collect information about your use of those services. The value you get from those services is often intangible (you watched a cat video or looked through a photo gallery of your sister's new kid), though sometimes monetary (you don't have to pay an ISP for an email address if you use gmail.) When you choose to no longer use the services and demand that Google delete all the data they have gathered are you going to return that intangible value and pay them for the money you saved by using their systems? How would you do return the experience of watching a stupid cat video? It's exactly like eating a meal but insisting the restaurant give up the value, i.e. the money, that they got from you.
You're right. I didn't get the analogy. After your explanation, I now get it.
But still, the analogy is flawed then. If I give the restaurant money, the way the use they money afterwards doesn't affect me. They cannot take more money from my bank account or from my pocket. The only thing they can do is invest it and make more money, but it does not affect me.
When I give my data, the way they use my data – after I've "eaten there" – can affect my life. They can send me spam, they can put me into database of "people with suspicious behavior", ...
The law is more about giving a second chance: I could have given information in the past, and you could have sent me commercial emails in the past. But now I've realized I've made a mistake and I don't want you do that anymore.
If you want an analogy to real life: it's more about giving 5 years of jail to a burglar. They committed a mistake, so they have to pay for it, but they should have the right to get out after having paid, and live a normal honest life.
FWIW, this last analogy is probably not going to sound very convincing to an American audience, as convicted felons here have their lives permanently ruined, including after they've paid their debt to society in full. As an expat, people are surprised to hear I'm the only person who can request and provide my (empty) criminal record from my home country.
Google generates money not by collecting data but by showing targeted ads (they need personal information to do good job at targeting).
They actually do provide option to opt out, remove information about you but they make a quite a hassle to opt out and block features that could otherwise work, to encourage you to opt back in. For example you don't agree for Google to your location history? Fine, you don't have location history in Google Maps even for places you searched 5 seconds ago.
Anyway, to turn things around, yes they provide you services for free, and you're paying for using them by have targeted ads, if you decide to not use those services anymore you can't get an offline version of their tools that doesn't phone home, so why should they be allowed to keep your data in perpetuity?
Targeted advertisements is one way that Google uses data about its users to generate cash. Just like users use Google Docs to create invoices, use Google Search to find solutions to problems, and use Gmail to send resumes and receive job offers. The exchange here is the use of the service for the gathering of the data. How it's used post exchange is not relevant. Is a person who decides to cease using gmail going to quit the job that they used gmail to, in part, get?
The fair result of a person choosing to stop using a company's service is that they get to stop paying for that service, i.e. Google doesn't get to collect data about your current and future activities.
The difference is that your data is still valuable whether it is week later or 10 years later. While it is unlikely Google does it, the data also can be sold to multiple parties and that doesn't diminish its value.
People truly underestimate how much information about them is actually worth.
You're not understanding the analogy. What does a user get out of using Google's services? They get access to a suite of products (search, email, cloud storage, online productivity apps, videos, and so on) that are maintained by a rather expensive group of employees and run on a rather expensive collection of hardware. When you use those services you pay for them by letting Google collect information about your use of those services. The value you get from those services is often intangible (you watched a cat video or looked through a photo gallery of your sister's new kid), though sometimes monetary (you don't have to pay an ISP for an email address if you use gmail.) When you choose to no longer use the services and demand that Google delete all the data they have gathered are you going to return that intangible value and pay them for the money you saved by using their systems? How would you do return the experience of watching a stupid cat video? It's exactly like eating a meal but insisting the restaurant give up the value, i.e. the money, that they got from you.