Lookit all that data floating out into the internet.
If you are reading this, chances are fairly good that your browser is collecting information from your mobile device or computer. Location information, demographics, browser history and so on. Between Google, Facebook and every other app you use, data that might you might feel some ownership over is being shared, collected and sold. There are apps out there to at least take back some slice of solace for your data being collected, bought and sold. Such as Killi, an app that offers you at least some monetary compensation for sharing your data.
Killi's fair-trade data program runs off the back of the data dividend concept presented by California Governor Gavin Newsom with a little bit of Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income sprinkled on top. For flavor. Every time a brand or platform uses the user data shared with Killi, those users will be compensated. They will also be provided with a full transparency report that will reveal what data was purchased, by which capitalist organization and for how much. Both the buyer and the seller are aware of the details of the transaction, hence, fair-trade.
Traditionally, your data is scraped, bought and sold by a large network of data brokers. Most of this is done whether you think you are running privately or not. This isn't necessarily personal information (a much different concept than general demographic data scraped from your browser or public records) but it feels personal. There is also little to be done about short of deleting yourself from the internet. This global data market exists, Killi offers the consumer a way to take back some of the power — through money.
"The trillion dollar global data market has zero consumer inclusion yet it continues to generate billions of dollars for corporations each and every year," Killi CEO Neil Sweeney tells me. "Currently the average consumer’s data is worth approx $500 per year and in platforms like Facebook, is growing in value at a rate of 30% per annum. Considering that all data is a manifestation of a consumer's identity the need for a mechanism to allow consumers to see who is using their data, consent to its use as well as receive some compensation represents the future of data — one which includes the consumer."
On Killi, you the consumer control what data you share, what you sell and what you want to stop sharing. Though, traditionally, once it's out there — it's out there, but Killi claims that it would cease to exist on its platform. If you delete Killi from your phone, all profile data and history will be deleted along with it. Conceptually, when it comes to your data; you are already wet, may as well get in the pool.
Depending on how much data is used and how much it was purchased for, Killi plans to transact up to a dozen payouts per month (per user) for United States based users. Killi is the middle man here, connecting consumers with brands that want that sweet, sweet data (so they can then market to those same users). Killi is layering on user consent in a market that traditionally operates in the shadows. And because the data comes directly from the users, all the data is GDPR compliant. We're all our own data brokers in a sense.
"The future of data is consumer inclusion. Period," continues Sweeney. "Failure to include the consumer at the foundation of your data decisions from this point forward will result not only in gaps in consent, privacy and fraud but leave a gaping hole in what the company stands for as an organization. At Killi every data variable that you share has an opt-in and opt-out mechanism. Want to share email today but not tomorrow — you can change that right in the product. How do you do that in other systems today? You don't."
The question of how much ownership we have over the data we share through programs and apps we use but didn't design is an ethical one that will rage through the connected world until it either all crumbles or the concept of data privacy is something we read about in history books. With massive unemployment tearing through the nation, tremendous aid packages holding up the economy like balancing bricks on toothpicks — finding and offering additional streams of income could be a burst of pure oxygen for many.
While there is a current ad revenue slump due to the pandemic, it won't last forever and what money being spent now is (hopefully) being spent wisely. This means highly targeted advertising, which means the detailed and more reliable the data the better. Which means data that comes straight from the user rather than scraped and sold by a data broker is much more valuable right now. Fair-trade data is the future of data buying and selling.
Concludes Sweeney, “In a market where we currently have 15% unemployment and the U.S. Government has approved a $2.2T aid package to help people just imagine if what we are doing with Killi was expanded to the entire data market (350m people x $500 per month)? Would it not make the entire aid package redundant? Would it not help those who just lost their job? Are they behind on their bills? Are they on social security or welfare? It would be the single largest redistribution of wealth the planet has ever seen and it would really be giving to people what was rightfully theirs.”
