I talked to Matt about not owning our own data after GopherConSG where he gave this talk. It was enlightening how complicated the issue is - there's a lot of legal liabilities on the end of the data provider (the company that monitors the glucose) so I can understand why larger corps are a bit hesitant to open up.
On the other hand, it seems quite heinous that users don't have access to data that is rightfully theirs that they can action on it.
I never understood this. Would this be like buying a BIC pen and they have a required license agreement where any entropy made with the pen is owned not by the creator of the data but by the creator of the tool used? With out the person the data would not exists.
Perhaps if your bic pen fed your scratches into a system that ignored aberrant marks, cleaned up your letters, ran a spell check, and printed the result in the font of your choice?
This glucose device is a sensor. Sensors generally produce noise, sometimes a lot of noise, and require post processing in order to get the signal you wanted. The raw data is interesting but often not reliable as input.
That kind of processing is usually complex and companies often seek IP protection and close their source or use DRM. Whether that’s good or bad is a matter of opinion but the motivation is clear.
On the other hand, it seems quite heinous that users don't have access to data that is rightfully theirs that they can action on it.