Big Data Tracks Everything You Do On The Internet, Here’s How Blockchain Can Stop That

A dive into the use case of blockchain technology to regain control over your data privacy and even gain access to passive income.

Encroachment On The Privacy Of The people

While many people are aware of the fact that big-name corporations like Google and Facebook are prone to keep track of your data across the internet, many people don't understand the extent to which we are monitored on a day-to-day basis.

In 2018, Vanderbilt University published a study on the extent to which google was found to track android users and the results are unnerving. The study found that in a normal 24 hour period, a phone with chrome running in the background will send its location to google servers 340 times a day by itself. While many people recognize that their searches and entries are tracked, Vanderbilts findings concluded that two-thirds of the data collected was without any user input. This means that they are scanning through emails, background applications, and even personal locations without the user's knowledge.

Additionally, an AP study published the same year found that even individuals who declined permission for google to track their location still had their devices transmit their location to Google's servers a number of times throughout the day.

The Pew Research Center found in a survey that almost 80% of Americans worry about the threat of online companies infringing upon their data privacy.

Big Data Is Profiting Hundreds Of Billions From Your Data

Major internet companies like Google and Facebook claim to keep 100% of the information to themselves as we scroll through the internet but where they make money is the manipulation of this data that is collected for potential advertisers.

In 2021, Google Generated 209 Billion Dollars from the use of this tailored advertising service. This advertising service grounds its foundations on the surveillance of its own users. This profitability is coming from user-generated searches, user-generated browsing, and in general, user-generated activity in almost every way.

Ownership of data has proven to be monumentally profitable for the massive corporations that maintain control over the internet as we know it. Blockchain flips this dynamic on its head and puts the ownership of data back into the hands of the user.

A Decentralized Past And Future Of The Internet

It's important when looking back at the history of the Internet that it wasn’t always like this. In the early years and stages of the Internet, it was hailed as a tool in which anyone could read and write information to be consumed.

Those present in the unveiling of the early stages of the internet witnessed a time of community-based development and interaction through decentralized discussion communities. Decentralized communities can be described as being free from a central server or falling under the jurisdiction of a single company's intellectual property.

Unfortunately, as the technical complexity of the internet advanced, this idealogical heyday soon faded in favor of technological giants providing their services for “free” with organizations taking control over user data as compensation.

For those familiar with the blockchain space, decentralization and blockchain are two words that are synonymous with one another. Use cases like D-Frame and Brave Browser are two examples in which blockchain is being used to put users in control and most importantly in a position to profit off of their data.

D-Frame and Brave Browser

Many major projects in today's blockchain ecosystem revolve around the implication of removing the middle man from forms of exchange. Google and Facebook characterize this middle man status as they keep track of our data and make it useful for advertisers to better target customers generating revenue for everyone except the user.

Blockchain puts data control in the hands of the user and any revenue generated from ad space is directly given straight back to the user.

Brave Browser, the browser in which I am currently writing this article, blocks access to third-party data storage. By denying this, websites are restricted from the ability to follow you around to different parts of the internet to better understand your habits.

Additionally, users are given the ability to opt into non-specific ads which generate the user money for screen space. Standing firmly on the pillars of user privacy and agency. Those who browse in Brave are given total control over the privacy of their own data while being granted the unprecedented ability for users to profit from the ads they are exposed to.

For reference, In the time I have written this article (3–4 hours) I have generated around 25 cents from ad space in passive income.

D-Frame, a new blockchain project coming out of India, sees decentralized potential in transparent permissioned data. Currently, when accessing a website, users are given no other choice than to submit their data if they wish to view the website with nothing to be given in return.

D-frame works on a privacy by choice model in which users are given the option to share, sell or make data private. Taking this idea of agency over data a step further, D-Frame imagines a digital market in which users are given the capability to exchange data while retaining ownership and transparency over future transactions.

For example, when reading an article in the New York Times you might be greeted with a block that demands you permit tracking ‘cookies’ on your computer. Currently, without your permission or knowledge, the data gathered in the form of these cookies can be sold to other sources for profit.

D-frame not only assures that a fair price is given to the user for the data, but maintains transparency over where and how this data is being used and distributed. By retaining ownership over data throughout this process, royalties can be distributed to users upon any future exchanges. Thus creating an avenue for universal basic income simply by browsing the web.

Conclusion

The internet has seen the evolution from a decentralized equal playing field to a digital domain dominated by organizations with more resources and capital than some small nations.

These operations continue to generate incomprehensible wealth off the value that users are generating by using their services for ‘free’. Blockchain serves as an avenue for everyday people to retake control over the value of their data by not only deciding who has the authority to use data but profit from it as well.

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