Companies aggregating data about individuals abound today. Some are service providers like phone companies, others provide services on the web including Google, Facebook, Yahoo! There is also a whole data broker industry that is regulated. The Wall Street Journal recently covered the world of online cookie tracking for people that end up on secondary markets.
In the US the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communication Commission both look at this industry, updating the legislation and regulation in this space from the time the current regulatory environment developed in the 1970’s. In Europe, there is much stronger regulation about the collection and use of personal information.
Most businesses that people interact with generate digital data about those transactions. Currently, there is no open way for the information from those transactions to be sent to and stored by the customer. By sharing data with the individuals with whom they do business, they potentially can get a much richer profile of those individuals and could — with access to that data — provide them better services.
Social data is stored by some and transaction data stored by others. Your phone calling log’s are one kind of social data whereas your credit card company has transaction data. People can be the integration point for all their digital data and choose how and when to share. There can be whole markets of matching and 3rd and 4th party service providers that connect people to markets.
This new ecosystem model where individuals have control over collecting their own data in a Personal Data Service presents opportunities and challenges. There are many questions about what this ecology looks like for all kinds of businesses. How does value flow and where is money made?
The Personal Data Ecosystem Focus Area will be hosting a series of events doing Value Network Analysis of the new ecosystem. It is a method that documents all the roles in a business system and maps the implicit (informal and informational) and explicit (money and contractual) flows in a system.