Data Services based on Consent in a Fair Three-Player Market

The big tech data market has completely excluded the consumer. We need a new economic model of a fair, consensual, personal data market in which the consumer now features as a major player, writes Brian Birkhead, Chief Data Officer

The title sounds pretty innocuous, doesn’t it? But, please read it again! What’s being implicitly proposed here is both radical and disruptive.

Anyway, let’s dissect it and hopefully you’ll see what I mean.

First, I’d better explain what specifically I mean by ”data services”.

Well, the “data” refers to personal consumer data gathered by platforms and then sold on to brands in the form of a range of “services” that help them (the brands) make incremental profits through better targeting, personalisation, insight-led planning and market understanding derived from that data.

Next, the word, “consent” or, put another way, whose asset is it anyway? Most data-gathering platforms (think about the big-tech companies) have historically garnered our personal data without a tip-of-the hat, a by-your-leave or an acknowledging glance. They have insidiously collected and used personal data as if it were their own.

Which brings us to what I mean by ”a fair, three-player market”.

In a properly constituted market, the data platform would sit in the middle as a broker, with consumers on one-side selling their data assets, and brands on the other buying them in the form of data services developed by the platform. The big-tech market above looks nothing like this – it is a two-player market from which the consumer has actually been completely excluded. Such a market  cannot be considered to be “fair” - as being free from self-interest, injustice or deception. The thought of these companies compensating consumers, either for sharing their data with them (whether knowingly or not!), or whenever they use it to make money for themselves (and ultimately for brands) has never even crossed their minds.

Which is why Numerous is now pioneering a new economic model of a fair, consensual, personal data market in which the consumer now features as a major player. In this new world, consumers will be rewarded fairly whenever they consensually share their data and whenever it is bought by brands (at a commensurate, fair price) to enhance their own marketing effectiveness and profitability.

I invite you to join this revolution. As an individual you can demand fair recompense for the use of your own data assets – Numerous will help you achieve this* - and as a professional like myself you can raise the ethical issues involved at every opportunity you have.

Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash