Datum: Your Data is Truly Yours
Hi guys, we meet again in a brand new article in cryptocurrency review. This time, we're gonna talk about Datum. Datum is not a new project, in fact, it has already being traded at many exchanges. Some of you probably own DAT tokens too, so let's cut the introduction and go straight to the topic my article: how Datum can help you to solve the existing problems in the data industry. We will discuss in-depth (hopefully) the tangible problems in the data industry and how Datum can help us to fix them.
Your Data in Your Hands
One of the major problems that #Datum pointed out in their whitepaper is about data control. It means whether a user can own, manage and share their data by themselves or not. This problems still exist until today, whether you realize it or not, and is probably going even worse.
For example, let's use your photos on social media like Facebook and Twitter as the data. Almost everybody can use it without your knowledge. They can reproduce, edit it, share and so on. Companies use what you share, what you like and what you respond to on social media to create targeted ads that sometimes annoy us because it appears too often. Not only that, they can use that data to profile you to find what kind of product that you like, how to sell it to you, who's your friend that possibly will buy it too and so on.
All of that happens because your data is not owned by yourself. You can't stop other to share or use it, even if you wanted to. This happens because many things, one of them is because your data was uploaded to a server where everybody can see and use it, and there is no license about it.
So how to stop that from happening? We need a platform where we can save our data securely so that everybody who wanted to access that will needs to require our approval. Better yet, we can use a decentralized storage database to make sure that our data won't be centralized at some point that makes is vulnerable to an attack. Luckily, Datum is there to make it possible.
By using #IPFS and #BigchainDB, Datum will provide the required decentralized database where you're the only one who controls that data. After that, Datum will provide the marketplace where everybody can ask to use your data. Every transaction or request will be possible to be followed because it will be timestamped on the blockchain.
You will be the one who decides what data that others can use, and therefore you can protect your own privacy. Regardless of what kind of data it is, including but not limited to IoT statistics, social media updates, articles, pics and so on, you can protect them all.
Get Your Rewards
Most of the time, companies are using and taking the data from you, but you don't get anything in return, except new products and features that require you to pay more to use it. This practice is still happening until today, it is not possible for you to gain anything in return for your contribution to their product, while those companies can gain millions of dollars in return after they sell the product because they can collect your data.
Don't you feel mad about this? Don't you want to get something in return? Why should you give your data for free when you should get something for your contribution?
How Datum works. Source: Datum Whitepaper
Relax, the future is near. With Datum Marketplace, you will able to monetize your own data. Set the price, choose which data that others can buy (or get it for free), and select which one that should be private. Using this marketplace, companies or other interested parties can also look for data that they required, without having to register or pay other companies for data acquisition. They can directly interact with the user itself to ensure that they get the data from the grassroots, without any addition or removal.
Via this marketplace, you'll earn what you deserved to and other will also give you the appropriate rewards. This will be a win-win solution for you and for companies that want a genuine user data right from the core.
User Data Abuse
Facebook & Cambridge Analytica case is probably the best example about this problem. Yes, there's a probability (and it is high) that your data will be abused by companies or a person behind your back. For example, by using the apps on Facebook, some companies can collect your preferences about clothes, what color that you like, what model, and so on. After that, they will sell it to other companies and gain the return.
But, they can also use it for other purposes, such as political purpose. They use the data to create a campaign material that is suitable for the audiences, even if the content is likely a lie. They can also sell it to the government or even terrorist that disguised themselves as a company that needs your data (who knows?). This potential is quite high, as you don't really know which and how many of your data being collected by the other companies and to whom they sell it.
In order to decrease this risk, Datum will help you to protect your data, by allowing other parties to buy or use the data that you personally choose. For example, you don't want your results of doing some test to be public, or you don't want your identity to be known by another person. Datum will help you to protect your data and identity by making sure that every data that you store on the network, or collected from the network to be only accessible when you agree to sell it. In fact, you protect your identity (making yourself anonymous) while at the same time get rewards from selling or monetizing your data.
Make Data Usage More Transparent
In the status quo, we can't know who, when, how and what data the third-parties like a company uses. Therefore, it is impossible to audit their data usage and prevent possible misuse of data. In fact, we know the Facebook scandal after a whistleblower tells the true story. This means the only way to audit or know how user data used is from the internal company itself. Not only that, we also hard to believe whistleblower when they don't have any proof, which is kinda hard to get when the company is protecting all their dirty secrets.
Datum Mobile Apps Preview. Source: Datum
So, how to solve this complex yet important issues? Simple, you need a platform where you can manage how your data will be used, and Datum will be there to help you. With Datum, you can set your data usage and policy, even the future use of your data. This way, we can know how will buyer use our data and what will happen if they broke the agreements. This looks so simple, yet this is more effective to for data transparency as every detail have to be approved by you and there is a policy that the 'buyers' need to agree.
Conclusion: Your Data is Truly Yours
So here we are, I recommend you read Datum full whitepaper and follow their blog post to see the progress of the platform. They'll go full throttle and you'll enjoy the benefits asap when you join the platform. Don't be late to join the party and make your data to be truly yours. Ciao!
PS: Don't forget to check these link:
Datum Website: https://datum.org/
Datum Whitepaper: https://datum.org/assets/Datum-WhitePaper.pdf
Disclaimer
#1 This article is not a financial recommendation. The author, Datum and other parties mentioned in this article is a separate entity. The author writes this article based on his own understanding of Datum. Readers should read the original document of Datum by themselves. The author shouldn't be responsible for any actions taken by the readers, including but not limited to: joining the Datum bounty program, participate in the Datum token sale, and etc.
#2 This is a promotional article. I'm writing this article as part of my contribution for Bounty0x Datum bounty. My Bounty0x username is joniboini16. Readers are suggested to read Datum whitepaper by themselves to ensure the validity of data written here.