How much is your privacy worth? Will Itheum change the game?

6 Apr 2022

3 min read

How do you handle your data?

Consumer behaviour has changed over the years and that is mainly because we are surrounded by targeted advertising.

We buy things for no reason and then we ask ourselves why we did it.

The truth is that marketing strategies, aggressive advertising techniques, and skilled influencer gurus, are not only watching us, but they manipulate our decisions.

How can they do that? First, we surf around the web, thinking nobody is watching, while millions of eyes try to predict and put our every move in a pattern.

Every day we give away our data in return for some free product or service.

We sign up to apps, websites, and social networks, use digital banking and everything is recorded by commercial profit-seeking organizations.

You already noticed it. You say things out loud close to your smartphone and the next minute google will suggest shops related to that.

They use all this data to target you specifically. To create products and services irresistible for you so you keep coming back for more.

You would think that companies can’t influence you that much, without you realizing it, but they do. They make us feel like we desperately need their products and services. And some of these companies do sell your data to other companies making millions of dollars of profit.

This is not a conspiracy theory, you may recall Facebook had to pay 5 million dollars in 2019 and now in 2022 it has to pay 90 million dollars to settle a data privacy lawsuit.

Fact: “There are over 4000 of these data brokers in the world today and they have over 3000 data points collected on each one of us! The entire Data Brokerage industry is worth over USD 200 billion each year and the person generating data (YOU) has no idea how your data is used nor do you get any form of compensation.” States the whitepaper of Itheum

Is it abusive? Yes. Is it immoral? Yes. Is it illegal for companies to collect all this data about us? Unfortunately, NO. Not yet.

How does blockchain technology change this?

Well, your data is worth thousands of dollars and you don’t even know it. So, in Web3 you will be able to own and trade your data. In simpler words, if brands and companies want to know what you are searching for, what are your interests, if you are a smoker or not, they will have to pay you for it.

How will all this be possible? Well, meet Itheum. The world's first decentralized cross-chain data brokerage platform, that transforms your data into a highly tradable asset.

According to the Itheum whitepaper, it “provides data creators and data consumers with the tools required to “bridge” highly valuable personal data from web 2 into web 3 and then to trade data”.

Your data will be available for sale as NFT, and if the buyer resells your data, you will also receive royalties.