Web 3.0 Datacollector for the masses

“first powerseller on ‘ebay for private data’”

1.0. Introduction: State of the art

Modern society runs on data. Modern arficial intelligence (AI) extracts value from data. More data means more accurate AI model, which in turn means more benefits to society and business. The greatest beneficiaries are companies that have both vast data and internal AI experse, like Google and Facebook. In contrast, AI startups have excellent AI experse but are starving for data; and typical enterprises are drowning in data but have less AI experse. The power of both data and AI — and therefore society — is in the hands of few (Ocean Protocol — technical Whitepaper)

1.1. Main thesis: A blockchain-based marketplace for trading data

The possibility of allocating the profits from the sale of data to the actual producer of this data has become possible, with the innovations of blockchain. The implementation of such a solution can be done through a marketplace for buying and selling data.
It is even possible to sell data without giving the original information to the buying party using solutions, which allow the buyer to analyze data within the system. Through this solution the original data stays unknown, but the results of the respective analysis is available to the buyer. Such an approach is referred to as secured multi-party computing (sMPC).

1.2. Status quo: Central stored data with unused potential

Data is stored centrally by data aggregators like social media-, search engine- or other software-companies. The main use of the data collected in this way is by third parties who are given the opportunity to carry out targeted advertising. it is therefore not possible to subject the data to independent analyses by these third parties. Any other acquisition of data is not permitted by regulation and is usually carried out by the data-aggregating platforms on a non-monetary basis in order to circumvent regulations.

1.3. Problems:

The main problems are that users offer their data without compensation, there are neither real options for accurate detailled target permissions nor possibilities to see who is “using” their data for advertisement. In addition data aggregators bypass user-permissions through non-monetary sharing with third parties, which even brings regulatory risks to the companies. Advertising companies rely on the information and service offered to them by the same parties who is selling the space for their advertisement. This inefficiency is causing high budgets for advertisement to reach the targeted goal. Another problem for third partiys is the inability to self-run analyses of data.

2.0. Solutions: Ocean Market — “the ebay for private data”

One of the most promising solutions of Web 3.0 can be seen in the 2017 established Ocean protocol. Ocean Protocol is a blockchain-based ecosystem that allows individuals and businesses to easily unlock the value of their data and monetize it through the use of ERC-20 based datatokens. Through Ocean Protocol, publishers can monetize their data while preserving privacy and control, whereas consumers can now access datasets that were previously unavailable or difficult to find. These datasets can be discovered on the Ocean Market, where they can be purchased and later consumed or sold. On Ocean Protocol, each data service is represented by a unique datatoken, which is used to wrap a dataset or compute-to-data service — this essentially allows third-parties to perform operations on the data without it ever leaving the secure enclave of the publisher.The current market-cap of OCEAN-protocol is > 700 m USD

2.1. Problems: Ocean Protocol is only the beginning

The established marketplace “Ocean Market” is not growing as fast as projected and deals with some problems: The uploaded data is not standardized, the operability is not user-friendly, Payments are only made through the native Ocean utility token, which is not possible for a lot of companies and the ability to aggregate and offer data focuses exclusively on individual parties. The aggregation of parties in advance is not possible with the current architecture, which can be seen as the main problem to attract big companies like advertisers or companies who are reliant on big-data for analytical purposes.

2.2. Excursus: Dataunion.app — “Ocean-Markets Shopify”

DataUnion-as-a-service platform provides unique blockchain features for agile, collaborative AI development and gives every individual, professional or corporate partner the opportunity to use their data for a better future and their own profit.​ Accordingly, dataunion provides an architecture that can be seen as an interface between the ocean market and its own collected data. data can be collected by an association of numerous parties and subsequently pooled via dataunion and processed for the application of algorithms. Subsequently, the right of access to the algorithms developed in this way and the permission to apply them to the collected data is offered for purchase via ocean market. This will provide an alternative to the service offered by the currently established data aggregators (see chapter 1.2). Third parties will still not be able to access the stored data themselves; However, it will be possible to apply own analyses to the collected data, which can be expected to lead to a drastic increase in efficiency, e.g. for marketing campaigns, which can be equated with cost savings in this area. Furthermore, possibilities for analysis are created, which are currently only available to the platform operators themselves, resulting in a large number of new fields of application for companies to which this data was not previously available.

3.0. Vision: Data supplier of the masses

By creating a network of a great number of private individuals who are willing to sell their own data, a market model is created that is still missing in the established value chain. The connection to the existing infrastructure of dataunion ensures the compatibility of the collected data for the use of third-party algorithms. Access granted through the ocean market results in the generation of revenue, which can be passed pro rata on to the network of private individuals.The focus is therefore on the creation of a service that enables the aggregation of own data from various self-used platforms.The data collected in this way remains the property of the respective individual, enabling an overview and the targeted granting of permission for certain data sets. Additional features such as the payout of any earnings can be made via fiat payouts. As a result, it remains an easy-to-use and understandable solution, which promises a freely accessible overview of your own data, permissions and at the same time a source of income. The designation of income streams generated in this way as a universal basic income is obvious

3.1. Problems:

High regulatory requirements must be met in order to ensure the correct use in terms of the respective individual within a network. This is achieved through targeted permissions and a detailed breakdown of the stored and forwarded data. there is still a need to access established platforms in order to obtain data in a user-friendly manner without much effort. further processing and analysis by third parties must be carried out in accordance with granted rights and regulations at all times. As a partner, dataunion is also responsible for this. Furthermore, it is intended to create the possibility of creating a white & blacklist for users so that their data is only made available to companies and institutions that have been specifically accepted for this purpose.

3.2. Conclusion:

Using the possibilities of the Ocean Protocol and solve the main problems this solution is dealing with seams to be the right move. The hole project is worth ~ 880 M USD, which underlines the solid programming and idea the protocol is designed with. Solutions that bring real-world usability are important to that project and could increase opportunities to get a funding from the Ocean Protocol Dao. The cooperation with dataunion and thereby the usage of their already existing architecture, will make it possible to be fast, efficient and technical feasible at all time.

3.3. Customers:

B2C companies that have a need to define their target group and obtain detailed information about them are predestined as customers. Thus, companies in the branding phase are just as suitable as those that are just on the threshold of generating their first sales, for which the question arises as to the optimal use of advertising budgets.

4.0. Excursus: Secure Multiparty-Computing

The comparison of data by more than one party without exchanging the originated data, called Secure Multiparty-computing (sMPC), is possible and an innovation which is currently still in its infancy in combination with the possibility of the blockchain. Summarized shortly it becomes possible by merging sMPC with other cryptographic techniques, to compare the encrypted features of one dataset with those of another dataset — in complete privacy. Some Research in this field might lead to a solution for offering aggregated private data of individuals to buy-side-companies without revealing the original data. This mechanism needs to be adjusted, so the original purpose of the buy-side-data acquisition is still fullfilled.