Mumbai: It has been almost two decades since we saw the rise of the internet and various applications like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, etc. They have brought a revolutionary change in everyone's lives. From sending messages or doing a video call, there is a powerful solution available for everything. But even though they solve major problems, there is one major concern: user data.

Data ownership and web2.0: Introduction 

Most of the applications we use today store a huge amount of data on their servers to design advanced models and algorithms to show advertisements and information. This information includes not only your name and email address but also the posts you read, advertisements you click, and so on. To be more precise, although you can use such applications for free today, you are giving a huge amount of data to the companies in return.

This has raised several concerns related to data privacy and preservation. As per the recent survey done by termly.io, in 2013, hackers breached Yahoo's systems and stole information from over three billion accounts. However, the information did not include any sensitive figures like payment data or bank account numbers.

Likewise, in March 2021, hackers scraped data from Facebook and exposed 533 million users’ information from all across the world. This has all the important information like user locations, biographical, etc. 

But with constant technological improvements and the emergence of concepts like web3.0, there has been a new gleam of hope seen among everyone, which would return the data ownership to the users.

Data ownership and web3.0

By leveraging blockchain, web3.0 addresses several storage, centralisation, and data ownership concerns. Web3's architecture does not use centralised servers to store data, but rather a large group of nodes spread across the globe.

Such nodes act like a bridge for the exchange of data between the decentralised applications and end users. A large number of decentralised applications are non-custodial and community-governed. Also, it secures all intellectual property rights algorithmically, giving users a true experience of data ownership. However, the underlying blockchain makes the process quite transparent and preserves privacy through advanced cryptographic algorithms.

How does web3 achieve its goal of sovereignty over user data and privacy?

Web3 utilises some of the most advanced features of blockchain and distributed ledger technology to protect users' data and privacy.

Encryption: Every asset, message, or even financial transaction is encrypted. Encrypted data is only accessible by decrypting it and requires private keys.

Private Keys: A private key is like your UPI pin, cryptographically made. It proves data ownership, digital identity, and the blockchain public address.

Authenticity: With private keys, users own their data and have the absolute right to share it. Users can leverage all the benefits from the data collected and profit earned from assets.

New ways of consuming data without compromising users' control over it

For example, if user data were democratised, big corporations and users would be able to profit together. Recently, there was a conflict of interest between Apple and Meta-related user data.

Apple has given a choice to users to share data or not. Individual users' ability to choose whether or not to share their data has no bearing on any small-scale business seeking to advertise to a specific audience.

Further, there could be a decentralised marketplace where small-scale businesses could pay the communities for their data exchange instead of paying large entities like Facebook for the same information. This would provide a new source of income for the community members.

Internet data is not just about making great profits or advertising. There is also a segment of people who collect data, not for profit but to invest in something new. Researchers and surveyors often look for user data to support their research or an invention.

If we could monetise the data, it would help the users earn some passive income and motivate them to increase the amount of data available to work for the betterment of society and research.

One such great example is credential data networks. The credential data network allows developers to build better products and communities. It opens up a collaborative infrastructure for users to get rewards where their credentials are used. This helps users earn income and build a large data network.

Challenges while adopting web3 for data ownership

Web3 has opened up numerous opportunities but is still in the work-in-progress stage. There are a lot of challenges and hurdles coming up while adopting decentralised applications, bringing a revolutionary paradigm shift in how we consume the internet. One such challenge is regulation. It isn't easy to regulate things in web3.0. Several experts believe it would open up new ways of conducting cybercrime and online abuse, among several other things.

Secondly, the user wallets that store account information like private keys have a bad user experience, and it is difficult to understand their usage by any layman. It is difficult for people to understand the terminologies of wallets, gas fees, keys, and much more. A lot of work is needed to onboard users and help them learn such concepts.

What does the future look like with web3?

The internet is constantly evolving, and recently many issues have come up regarding the safety of users' data. Web3 opens up new opportunities for people to control their data by leveraging credential data networks and decentralised social graphs. Products like Soclly are leveraging a decentralised social graph called the lens protocol to revolutionise social media applications.

The decentralised architecture stores data across numerous scattered ledgers. This eventually reduced the chance of hacking and gaining access to the data significantly. Not only this, but it also gives the opportunities to the users to own their data rather than centralised companies such as Meta and Google to own them. In a nutshell, this new age technology will bring a bright future for internet users to own and control their data.

The author of this article is Soclly co-founder Prayag Singh.