Re: [projectvrm] Trunomi and doing more with VRM than monetizing data

[John Light < >]

Very interesting article, thanks for sharing Doc.

Services like Uber and Airbnb are valuable for several reasons: they provide identity assurance, rating systems, insurance, and other value-adds that make people feel comfortable using these marketplaces instead of the over-regulated and entrenched incumbent equivalents. There's a reason Craigslist never took off as a venue for these kinds of interactions: it lacks the necessary features to do so (both in UX and in backend processes).

The most troubling aspect of Uber and Airbnb - or any of these p2p/ on-demand marketplaces - is the winner-take-all proprietary network effects that are created around these services, and the subsequently increasing amounts of control over they have over the customer's data silo therein i.e. "captive audience." What I'd really like to see - and am contributing at least in part to the creation of - is the development of a open protocol and software "stack" for p2p intent-casting and exchange. Think of it like the SMTP for intents and offers, connecting together the separate value silos that are eBay, Uber, Airbnb, etc (or disintermediating them completely, depending on how quick they are to adapt). Such a protocol would eliminate the worst abuses of these services - or at least provide a countervailing power against them - by giving people the opportunity to cut off ties with the bad services without losing access to the whole value network. Additionally, we could begin to unbundle the data from the service, giving each node in the network their own "silo" with which they can grant partial or whole access to certain service providers for the purposes of identity check, reputation rating, payment, etc.

We're already seeing the very earliest attempts at this in truly p2p marketplaces like OpenBazaar and BitMarkets, and I think that as these p2p marketplaces mature in parallel with VRM systems for intent-casting and personal data management, there will eventually be a convergence, and we will have a system that balances security, privacy, control, convenience, value, utility, and, perhaps most importantly, a good user experience.

But perhaps all of that is pushing the vision out too far into the realm of "some day" - I love going to the Project VRM website and seeing the long list of services that are already working towards these ends today by providing ways for customers to have more control over their relationships with vendors.

Do you think that VRM will be a category of services that people explicitly demand in the future? Or do you think it will be "baked-in," with most people unaware that it's referred to by a specific name but conscious of the fact that there's a service or pattern of services being provided that they like and is better than the way things were done before and that's it?

Best regards,

John


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On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 3:52 PM, Doc Searls < " target="_blank"> > wrote:

Re:

Alexander Ainslie

@AAinslie

@jobsworth @dsearls Are you ready for the "epic battle around the sovereignty of data & consent to share"? medium.com/the-fintech-bo… #VRM #SDH

The link there goes to Why business-led data monetisation is a mere stepping-stone to the consent to share end game. It’s by Stuart Lacey: <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/stuart-lacey/29/b46/585>, founder of Trunomi: <http://www.trunomi.com/>. Anybody familiar with it? (Could be Stuart’s here. Not sure.)

Description at @Trunomi on Twitter: "We transform the use of Personally identifiable info (Pii) and KYC; empowering customers to create, share and manage it at a fraction of the time, cost & risk.” (KYC is Know Your Customer. Perhaps the VRM counterpart would be Know Your Vendor.)

Some pull-quotage from the top link above, with comments:

Financial organisations the world over are clamoring to find ways to mine and use customer data; which, in turn is giving rise to consumers becoming more aware of how their data is tracked and used. Consumers are comfortable trading spending history for a free service,

No, that’s a marketing fantasy. As an Uber customer, I am comfortable with Uber knowing where I need to be picked up and my history of using their service, but nothing more than that. So, while I think it sucks that Uber has a shitty history around abuse of personal data…

http://time.com/3595025/uber-data/

http://www.gizmag.com/uber-app-malware-android/34962/

… I value their service enough to put up with it. But acquiescence ≠ comfort, and it is wrong to assume so.

but are beginning to question why a taxi company such as Uber should have access to family holiday photos.

Yep.

This raised level of awareness will require a whole new business model to emerge to address the use of personal data. The consumer will be at the core of that business model. Yes, consumers will be monetising their own data.

That’s the kind of thing that comes to mind when you stand on the side of the market where personal data is busy being monetized all the time. 

But from the personal side, data is secondary to agency: the power to act with full effect in the world. If we have full agency, we control how we interact with others on the Net. Valving the data we share is part of that, but far from all. Being able to control how we relate to other entities in the marketplace is far more important. Monetizing data only comes up because it’s already being done.

So, the logic goes, “Consumers’ data is being monetized without their involvement, so let’s find ways for them to monetize their data as well.” This is like saying, “There’s a big market in stolen goods, so let’s find ways for those whose goods are being stolen to get in on the action."

(This, fwiw, is where I was going with the vault vs. honeypot post we visited in an earlier thread: <http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/vrm/2015/04/29/of-vaults-and-honey-pots/>)

Regulation, public policy and consumer demand will soon collide in an epic battle around the sovereignty of data and consent to share. The next trillion dollar industry is one in which new solutions come to market that enable consumers to digitally manage and share their identifying information across a number of industries and verticals.

Yep, that’s cool. And that’s where VRM comes in as well. Maybe some of that ends up monetizing data. But if that’s all we get out of VRM, I fear we will have lost more than we have gained.

Doc