European legislation — French case : Your data has a value. You haven't claimed it.
Every year, digital platforms declare to the SEC the revenue they derive from each user. This revenue — the ARPU — already includes their profit and costs. What remains is the economic value extracted from your personal data, with no compensation for you.
Why do these amounts belong to you?
The Average Revenue Per User is the figure that Meta, Google and others declare every quarter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — the US equivalent of France's AMF. It represents the average revenue the platform derives from each user over a given period.
This figure already includes all platform costs — infrastructure, servers, engineers, advertising, net profit. It is not the cost of what is offered to you. It is what your data earns the platform, net of everything. What remains belongs to you — and you have not claimed it.
A contract is commutative when each party receives the equivalent of what it gives. The "free" digital contract is in reality a concealed commutative contract: you transfer your data (value = ARPU) in exchange for access to the platform. The absence of monetary consideration does not eliminate the imbalance — it conceals it.
Art. 1104 C. civ. — Légifrance →The European directive on contracts for the supply of digital content and services explicitly recognizes that personal data constitutes a valid economic consideration — on the same footing as money. This is the first time a European text has broken the "free service" dogma.
Directive 2019/770 — EUR-Lex →In the Österreichische Post judgment of 4 May 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that the use of personal data without adequate consideration constitutes compensable harm under the GDPR — even in the absence of demonstrated material damage. The simple fact of not having received the equivalent is sufficient.
CJEU C-300/21 — Curia →The GDPR grants you a right to portability of your personal data: you may at any time request that the platform return your data in a reusable format. This right is the first step towards the autonomous valorization of your data — and it is directly enforceable against any platform operating on European territory.
Right to portability — CNIL →You do not need to estimate what the platform offers you. The ARPU objectively states what your data is worth — platform profit included. The imbalance this tool calculates is not an opinion: it is a figure declared under oath to the SEC, applied to your duration of use.
What you see in the calculator is your unclaimed profit — not Meta's. Meta already has its own.
Your data has a value.
You deserve fair consideration.
DSE is the platform that lets you negotiate, co-write and decide — as a group, with full traceability.
Interested in the method? Read the research articles →