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In Web 3.0, Data Ownership And Monetization Must Belong To Individuals

Forbes Technology Council

CEO of LegalShield and IDShield, protecting and empowering people through legal plans and privacy management solutions.

Technology has come a long way since the early days of the internet. When Web 1.0 emerged in the 1990s, it gave users access to searchable digital information and basic e-commerce, but it was cumbersome and disorganized.

Web 2.0, which began in the mid-2000s and continues today, is shaped by content and connectivity. Myriad platforms, applications and mobile devices made it easy for us to interact with others, stream content, shop, work and play with a click or a swipe.

Now we are on the cusp of a new era that will be defined by who controls data. Tech titans that have dominated the ecosystem of Web 2.0 have made a fortune from tracking and monetizing user data. The combined annual revenue of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft is around $1.2 trillion, according to earnings reports from 2021, a jump of more than 25% since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

So far, users have not benefited from their data being monitored and sold, and public opinion is not satisfied with the status quo. A majority of Americans (81%) feel they have very little or no control over the data companies collect about them, and 79% are very or somewhat concerned about how companies use this data, according to a survey from Pew Research Center. Web 3.0 is poised to change the data ownership landscape and put the power back in the hands of users.

A New Data Model For Web 3.0

In Web 1.0 or 2.0, all information related to your interactions with online content is stored by the provider. You as the consumer don't have ownership of your personal data collected during an internet session.

Web 3.0 is focused on making personal information private again. It builds on a growing movement to give users control over their data ownership and monetization. Web 3.0 encourages individuals to decide how they want to collect and store their data—and if and when they want to sell it, instead of companies collecting it for free.

At its core, Web 3.0 is an opt-in system, which goes far beyond onerous terms and conditions agreements that few people read. In the future of Web 3.0, you will be able to customize your personal preferences for your data, whether they are universal or specific.

• Universal Settings: You decide you don’t want any company in any domain to track your data, and you set your universal settings to private.

• Specific Settings: You decide you are willing to sell your information in certain areas of your life. For instance, you set your preferences to track and monetize all of your business and leisure travel information: how you get there, where you stay, what you do. But you don’t want to share any information related to entertainment, shopping or news, so you opt to keep all of that data private.

Your individual profile will identify what can and cannot be done with your data through blockchain-backed smart contracts, allowing advertisers or intermediaries to aggregate your data in exchange for payment through a clearinghouse. Web 2.0 has already optimized an efficient Dutch auction market structure, where the highest price of something being offered—for example, data or keywords—is determined after all bids have been accepted.

The Revolution Starts Now

Today’s tech giants don’t yet pay for user data that creates an enormous amount of value for them, but I believe they will be forced to change their business models to stay relevant in Web 3.0. Public opinion is already shifting, and new startups that offer consumers options to sell their personal data are giving people something to run to, not just run from.

If companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google and Netflix resist this change, they will likely see their margins deteriorate over time. They will need to ask themselves some tough questions:

Do we want to attempt to keep high margins for an increasingly smaller part of the business?

Or are we willing to accept lower margins and try to maintain the ubiquitous presence we have online?

How can we evolve to be the intermediaries to pay for personal data in Web 3.0?

What other value-added services can we offer?

Tech companies have the opportunity to evolve and pay for data that creates value, content and audiences. When they realize that they can no longer obtain valuable data for free, they can choose to develop secure, private profiles in their existing ecosystems. Only then will users be where they belong: in the driver’s seat, deciding which information they want to sell about their lives, behaviors and preferences.


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