In the aftermath of a divisive U.S. presidential election that seems to mark the tail end of the 20th Century, I’m reminded of the daughters of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The “Mill Girls” of Lowell, Mass., made up 75% of all textile workers … Read more
Privacy as a Fundamental Right – 2017 The 21st century is often referred to as the information age, where data is a powerful asset, with humans generating about 2.5 quintillion bytes of it per day. In the early 2010s, India also saw an explosive rise … Read more
Can’t Touch This Warren Buffet was once asked why he owned a 5% stake in The Walt Disney Company. In his reply, Buffet drew a comparison between Mickey Mouse and the human actors that are on the payroll of most movie studios: “It is simple, … Read more
Imagine having a personal diary where you write about your life. Now, imagine owning that diary and not being able to enforce your right to possession. It’s yours, and yet you can’t have it. How did this happen? The only Free Cheese is in The … Read more
A few weeks ago some team members of the Streamr project attended the MyData Global community meeting where the recent EU Data Strategy paper was discussed in detail. For those of you not familiar with the organisation, MyData Global is an NGO, working on transforming … Read more
Network effects mean that Web 3.0 applications won’t take off with solutions that are ethically superior alone. Luckily, there’s a much easier way forward. There have now been enough privacy scandals to show that it’s time to give internet users back control and ownership over … Read more
Most decentralized projects are still young. Business decisions and technical calls tend to be made by the original founding team or groups of core developers. This is because blockchain technology is still a relative novelty, and designing and implementing good governance is hard. The relevant … Read more
What happens if you create Web3 sign-in and a payments process for a data marketplace? Traditional data marketplaces, such as Thompson Reuters and Dun & Bradstreet, require purchasers to have credit cards…a business address… and so on. But with Ethereum addresses acting as both the … Read more
I’ll start with a personal story. Just over a decade ago, when I was a freelance journalist, three police officers from the Greater Manchester police terrorism unit came knocking at my door. When I asked why they had shown up at my flat, they told … Read more
Your next Smart TV purchase will know how to spy on you and has buyers for your data. You bought a product from the store but as soon as you switch it on, and for its lifetime, you are the product. If you feel a … Read more