Currently, Walmart claims ownership but there is a growing school of thought that the data belongs to individuals.
Notably, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the first legal effort to control corporate data use.
I have a feeling it will not be the last.
US law is less clear, but I think attorneys will soon argue consumers’ own the data about their behavior.
How the courts will rule on data ownership is unknown.
Will there be a market for consumer behavior data?In addition, there are blockchain startups; like Brave, and Harmony, that aim to protect your data by monetizing it.
These efforts hope to create a market for personal data through tokenization.
For instance, the long-term goal at Brave is to pay consumers for their data in the Basic Attention Token (BAT) ERC20 cryptocurrency.
The belief is that by making data quantifiable and valuable it will be easier to protect.
Unfortunately, Brave and Harmony are focusing on online data but consumer behavior is their next frontier.
However, I suspect one of them will soon add behavioral data to its platform.
On the other hand, behavior data platforms; like Brave, JET8, and Harmony, are still in development.
In fact, Harmony is still on the drawing board.
So its developers could integrate with brick and mortar retail.
Companies are already Harvesting your DataNotably, companies are already harvesting consumers’ behavioral data.
For instance, CBS reports carmakers are collecting and selling data about drivers.
Moreover, Ford (NYSE: F) is building a Transportation Mobility Cloud to harvest drivers’ data.
Under these circumstances, consumer surveillance and data harvesting will increase.
Therefore, we will soon see political and legal battles over consumer behavior data.
In particular, consumers will demand data rights when they realize they can sell that data for money.
Originally published at https://marketmadhouse.
com on April 26, 2019.
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