Streamr has just launched a brand new tool that will encourage innovative business models from dapp builders.
Data Unions are an ethical new way to sell user data. By integrating into the Data Union framework, or building a Data Union app, interested developers can easily bundle and crowd sell the real-time data that their users generate, gain meaningful consent from users and reward them by sharing the revenue generated by their personal data.
Data Unions run proudly on Streamr and Ethereum. Data are pooled from end-users, through the Streamr Network, and finally presented at the Streamr Marketplace as a product, ready for sale.
Purchases are facilitated through a smart contract, secured by the Ethereum blockchain. Each Data Union has its own smart contract that automatically and directly shares the data revenue with those that generated the data.
The power of many
On its own, an individual’s data does not hold much value, but when combined in a Data Union, it aggregates into an attractive product for buyers to extract insights. This is ‘crowd selling’, and has the potential to generate unique data sets by incentivizing trade directly from the data producers. The more people that join the Data Union, the more powerful it becomes, and the greater the rewards are for everyone, once the data product sells to data buyers.
Listen to Shiv Malik, Streamr’s Head of Growth, talking about Data Unions in a recent interview with the BBC’s Digital Planet.
Building a Data Union
To get started on building your first Data Union, take a look at the Introduction to Data Unions section in Streamr’s developer docs, where you’ll find guidance on how to deploy the Data Union contract on Ethereum, integrate your end-user app, and publish the Data Union on the Streamr Marketplace.
When it comes to integrating the Data Union framework into existing apps, there are no specific requirements as such, just that your application needs to generate some kind of real-time data.
Meet the first Data Unions
Swash is the world’s first Data Union. It’s a browser extension developed by Streamr community members, which allows its users to capture, anonymize, and sell their browsing data on the Streamr Marketplace. Swash is a new, transparent way for internet users to reclaim control of which browsing data they want to share, and earn money from the sale of their personal data.
Tracey is an app for Filipino fisherfolk that will use the Streamr stack for documenting and verifying catch and traceability data. Tracey is currently being developed and tested in cooperation with Streamr’s subsidiary TX, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines, and UnionBank of the Philippines.
If you already have an idea for a Data Union, then apply to the Streamr DATA Fund and we might be able to help get your idea off the ground. Head to the Streamr developer forum if you want to learn more about seed funding opportunities, share your ideas, and get inspired by other Data Union builders.
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