Most of us have been freely using Google email and then Google drive, Blogger, Google docs etc for free over twenty years, by bartering our personal data and usage data to Google in exchange for our free use of their services. Along with the millions around the world we have bartered the right over our personal data for the benefits that would accrue for us in the Internet and cloud economy. Our free use of ZOOM for web conferencing, Whatsapp for instant messaging, sharing of data over social media like Facebook are other famous examples of bartered exploitation.
For all these years we have not tried to understand the commercial value of this data we are exchanging with these Internet giants. It is high time we did a commercial analysis of this bartered transaction.
The other day while going through the Harvard Business Review chanced upon an interesting write-up by Gillian Tett of July 2021 which stated with all conviction that the barter system which existed in the Internet needs to be changed once for all, lest it bring unequal benefits for some countries and communities over others and subjugation for other economies for decades into the future.
The interesting question to ask here is how do we get to monetise this barter system in totality that would improve the GDP of individual countries and of the global economy too and help countries realise better returns in the long run.
Clcik here for the article in HBR of July 2021 titled The Data economy is a barter economy by Gillian Tett.
How would this benefit the global individuals, the countries and global economy in general ?
The individuals could decide the quanity, quality and time period of this barter, ie. find the usage of their data by corporates and decide for how long this monetisation could happen giving the individuals the rights to switch between the different service providers at their sweet will. This improves the competitive usage of the free data for benefit of mankind. The countries could think of another product in their trade basket, data that could bring monetary value in exchange that could be used to improve the basic services offered in other areas of human existence in the individual countries.
By giving the freedom in the hands of the individuals to switch between deciding the entities that could use their data, could promote better and fair competition between the corporates of the world competing with each other to monetise their user's data.
Each user now has a unique identity on each of these services mentioned above. But arriving at a commonly arrived global unique data for each global inhabitant would enable a better and just distribution of the benefits accruing from sharing Internet usage and personal data of the global citizens.
Global bodies and organisations should strive to establish a unique global Identification number. It also shows that we are moving away from regional differences and becoming a global body integrating our beliefs, customs and practices, possibly also leading to a centralisation of our governing practices.
George..
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