Why do we need independent data operators that will store the digital personality? Part 2.

In previous post you can learn about four types of data and its problems that professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University Pedro Domingos highlights in his book “The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake our World”. Professor Domingos also offers a solution for organizing and keeping that data.

We need a new type of company that will play the same role for our data as a bank for our savings. Banks do not steal and should invest investments wisely. Today, many companies offer to consolidate our data somewhere in the cloud storage, but they are still very far from the level of personal data banks. Providers of cloud services are trying to tie us to themselves - and this is impossible (imagine that you opened an account with Bank of America and are not sure whether it will be possible in the future to transfer funds to another bank).

Companies of a new type, as professor imagines them, will provide several functions for the subscription fee. First, they will anonymize our interactions in the electronic world, conducting them through their own servers, and accumulate them, as well as similar actions by other users. Secondly, they will store in one place data collected during our life. Thirdly, they will form a complete model of our personality and our world and constantly update it. Fourthly - to apply this model on our behalf, within its abilities, always doing exactly what we would have done ourselves. The main obligation of the company before us is never to use our data and our model contrary to our interests. The guarantee will not be one hundred percent - after all, we ourselves are not immune from doing anything to ourselves in any way harmful. Nevertheless, the viability of the company will depend on the implementation of the agreement to the same extent as the survival of the bank - from the safety of our money, so we can trust them the way we trust banks today.

Such companies can quickly become one of the most expensive in the world. As Alexis Madrigal of the Atlantic magazine points out, today our profiles can be bought for half a cent or even cheaper, but for the online advertising industry the user's value is approaching $1200 per year. A piece of information about us, available to Google, costs about $20, Facebook has $5 and so on. Add to this the fragments that no one else has, and the fact that the whole weight of the sum of parts - the personality model based on all our data, is much better than a thousand models built from separate pieces.

Of course, some existing companies will happily take our "digital personality". For example, Google. Sergey Brin wants Google to become the "third hemisphere of your brain", and some of the company's acquisitions are probably related to how successfully streams of user data complement the company's own flow. But, despite the initial advantages, Google and Facebook, for example, are not very suitable for the role of our digital home, because there is a conflict of interest. They earn their living by targeting advertising, so they will somehow balance the interests of users and advertisers. Domingos asks rhetorical question: “You, probably, do not allow one of the hemispheres to be not entirely loyal to you? Then why give it to the third hemisphere?”

A potential threat can come from government bodies if they have the right to claim our data or even prophylactically put us behind bars. To prevent this, the company storing data should encrypt it, and the key should be at our disposal (now it is already possible to perform calculations on encrypted data without decrypting it). Or we can keep everything on our hard drive at home, and the company will simply provide the software for rent.

Privacy is only one aspect of the broader issue of providing access to information, and if we focus on it at the expense of the whole, we run the risk of reaching wrong conclusions. For example, laws that prohibit the use of data for any purpose, except for the originally envisaged, are extremely short-sighted.

Companies that store our digital identity and data protection associations, in professor’s opinion, will determine the picture of working with data in the future. Today, most people do not realize how much data they provide and with what costs and benefits this can be due to them. Companies, for their part, are happy to maintain the status quo and work behind the scenes. Domingos concludes that sooner or later such a system will collapse. It is better to raise awareness now and give everyone the right to choose whether to share data, and if so, how and where.

For more article follow this link: http://haneenalansari.blogspot.com/2017/04/what-is-future-of-digital-marketing.html