Bubblo Says No to Big Brother, Yes to Blockchain
Big Data, Big Brother, & You
Advertising has become such an integral aspect of our lives, we may hardly even know it. From Super Bowl commercials to those raunchy billboard trucks notorious for slinking up and down the Las Vegas Strip, everywhere we look we are bombarded with carefully manicured imagery and airwave jingles that shout “Buy me!” with varying degrees of explicitness. But with all of the recent attention on data privacy and new legislation passed locally this year, we’ve got to wonder, when did we get into bed with these marketers?
As it turns out, behind a shroud of Internet landing pages and mobile applications, developers and analysts have been capturing and analyzing our every digital move for years. Remember all those late nights surfing the net from the comfort of your bed? In a very real Orwellian sense, “Big Brother” was right there along with you in the form of backdoor programming codes that monitor everything from your Gmail inbox to timestamped metadata keeping a diary of your online habits. In fact, a study published by Vanderbilt University found that Google communicates with user devices an average of 14 times per hour, and that even anonymized data collected through mostly passive processes can easily be pinned to user identity.
But what is the value of gathering all of this raw data? Besides servicing the massive increase in e-commerce over the past few years, investigators are probing the likelihood that data inferences are having significant far-reaching social effects, all the way up to influencing presidential election outcomes. With the integrity of our electoral system in question, it’s no wonder policymakers are hustling to play catch up and reign in this runaway misuse of big data, and businesses are scrambling to keep their online dealings above board.
A Bumbling Fix
Perhaps you’ve noticed the increase in pop-up messages on your favorite sites lately making disclaimers about the cookies being used to track your data. These banners are the industry’s off-the-cuff answer to comply with the rapidly evolving laws that are meant to curtail “forced consent.” Besides sounding like another grim facet of our Orwellian predicament, forced consent has been the long-established norm which stipulates that in order to even participate on some of the most ubiquitous digital platforms, such as Facebook, users are also obligated to offer up access to their personal data.
Given the storm of controversy, consumers are finding that granting unfettered access to our data doesn’t always result in favorable outcomes. While some of us don’t mind the consequences that come in the form of more personalized embedded advertisements, what does make most of us shift in our chairs is the exploitation of ill-gotten information solicited in order to manipulate voting outcomes. In our current predicament of questionable cybersecurity combined with centralized data appropriation, our population is left vulnerable to malicious interests. And with more and more of our most intimate lives being reduced to categorical values, it’s not a far-off cast of the imagination to understand the implications of DNA database hacking — bringing the liability of cyberattacks from the homeland straight into our homes.
Blockchain Considered as a Solution
With stakes at an all-time high, bureaucrats are now motivated to provide solutions. In a post-Snowden era where public mistrust of corporate institutions and their respective governing bodies is the mainstay attitude, political divisiveness has crept into our nation’s psyche, coloring a paranoid discourse on all matters of surveillance.
A glimmer of hope for the preservation of privacy emerges out of Washington this week, as lawmakers and industry officials convene to consider the beneficial applications of Blockchain. From encrypting data for sensitive stealth missions to securing your medical records, the decentralized properties of Blockchain networks means the future of IoT is a feasible possibility. By transitioning away from a monopolistic centralization of access, the surrender of personal data in exchange for goods and services can now occupy a separate marketplace in a system of decentralized power.
Bubblo Lets You Close the Curtains on Forced Consent
With the advent of cryptocurrency ecosystems that capitalize on this notion of data as a valuable commodity, innovative platforms like Bubblo are emerging to grant the ownership and rights to dispersal of personal data back to individual consumers. By delocalizing these informational assets, the system will not be susceptible to sweeping pernicious cyberattacks nor the inadequate safety measures that have left our public vulnerable to foreign violation.
By allowing users to selectively decide where and how to dispense of their personal data, local businesses and marketers will now have to compensate individuals for the access to those revealing goods. No more dipping into the cookie jar for free. Paired with the AI titan, IBM’s Watson, Bubblo’s discovery platform is the latest solution for identity management that tailors venue discovery and curates personalized results based on an honest, open exchange. The data giants that currently benefit from peddling our information to dubious companies will soon have to face the reality of an empowered user base that is moving ever closer to a transparent data ecosystem, where invasions of privacy by “Big Brother” will be limited to our primetime TV show lineup.
