We all know.
Tech giants like Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and many, many more use our data with or without our knowledge to make big bucks. But they do so without much transparency, or use marketing to achieve a "green washed" privacy-pro stance. Behind closed doors, things proceed as usual: opaque selling of personal identifiable information and private information of virtually every kind you can imagine under the sun.
Worse yet, sometimes when we do find out about the depth and grade of data being sold and used by the tech giants, it's due to leaks of private data …to hackers, scammers and even enemies of the state!
So not only do tech giants breach our private spaces and personal conversation and identity, they do so in secrecy by default.
In fact, it's so out of hand, they frequently are found in violation of numerous laws and statues(take a look at the mounting suits filed in EU against Google, as a key example).
--There hardly seems room to start a discussion with their "Product" (that would be you) about compensation for breaches and the profuse selling of private, sensitive data.
The ASK Token: An Exercise in Trust and Compensation to Users
Permission.io is inspired by the theory that by asking for permission, the Company will find better, more qualified leads that are actually willing to buy products advertisers want to sell them.
With the ASK token, a user is compensated for the same data that Google mines from your searches. Instead of involuntary inclusion, you're asked for permission about the kind of information the tech giants already take without asking.
-- That's your name, address, phone number, email address, photo of you, a photo of your government ID and so forth.
The difference? The transparency and the compensation.
According to Permission.io's CEO, the data is aggregated and focused for advertisers. They are striving to scrub data of identifiable bits as much as possible, while leaving what's useful and relevant to the buyers of your data: patterns, behaviors and other data useful for advertising and lead generation.
- Permission.io strives to provide advertisers more qualified leads that actually WANT to be advertised to and willingly consented to sharing their data.
- Permission.io pays out in ASK tokens in order to give you power and compensation with regard to personal data.
- To cash out your ASK tokens you're required to complete verification which includes a photo of yourself, government ID and a few other details. All this data Google (and others) are already taking without your permission!
From what I've seen they are just testing with a couple of advertisers. You can use the ASK tokens to buy products right on their website.
…It's a start, but I'm optimistic that Permission.io or some other variant will be successful in transforming the way data has traditionally moved.
In our current model, the power and money has been enriching tech giants while leaving users confused, scared (when breaches occur) and betrayed.
In the crypto model, we'd see the blockchain used to compensate users for the data they produce and volunteer. The tech giants along with data buyers would be at the negotiation table making offers for that data, on a browser accessible ledger.
Promising Direction: Data Folios and Data Staking
What if more companies created tokens that allowed you to choose what photo of yourself they could or couldn't use?
What if the blockchain allowed you to see where 'corporation XYZ' sent that photo and how many of those companies used it in order to identify your hairstyle?
This is the kind of stuff going on in secret right now at Google, Apple and Amazon. They pretty much do as they please, when they please and the best they offer us is a Help page with about 1000 words of "green washing" about privacy this and that.
Where's our data? Who is using it? Why do they have it, when did they get it? It's a mystery to you and me, and worrying to say the least.
Chances are, the next cool kid on the block is going to be a company like Permission.io that significantly improves this dystopian "you're our data product" world we live in and give us our data, and our right to know back where it belongs: in your hands.
When that future comes, we may see "Data Folios" and "Data Staking" - users compiling information or data bundles that advertisers would like to know or see about you. This data may be scrubbed or raw. But the point would be, it would appear in blocks and you'd follow the chain of custody of your data from seller (you) to the middleman, buyer, whatever. You'd know what's happening, why it's happening and if you're being fairly compensated for what you volunteered.
I'd like to see this future. It may not be what I envisioned for the future, but it sure seems better than the flurry of emotions I have about big tech and all our data exchanging hands by the petabytes every week.
Permission.io is just the beginning. If you're aware of any others like them, please leave a reply.
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