Dutch student sells all his digital data for €350

 
From antique furniture to repossessed vehicles, all manner of oddities are auctioned, but until the Dutch student Shawn Buckles stepped up, no one has yet to auction off their entire collection of private data. In an auction taking place this past April 12th, Buckles sold his “data soul” ─ all his location records, medical records, personal calendar, social media communications, online conversations, and internet browsing history ─ for €350 (approximately $480).

Buckles’ action may seem odd to say the least bit, and even more preposterous was that fact that someone was willing to pay money for something so intangible; however, a political motive was apparent behind his self-sacrifice. Buckles was making a statement: information costs money. Our digital footprint is extracted on a daily basis by various marketers and intelligence agencies and we’ve yet to see a single cent. Buckles’ auction is indicative that commercializing personal information for personal gain is not unrealistic in the future.

Despite the budding potential, there are a few challenges to resolve before monetizing personal data becomes a “thing”. First of all, a market must be established where we can sell our data. Secondly, there are no monetary references on which to base the prices of the data; how Facebook and Google handle these transactions is unclear. 

By contrast, the one thing that is clear is the demand. The healthcare research sector, entertainment industries, and even insurance companies are all able to benefit from greater transparency, sometimes with a mutual benefit to the data producer. If a health insurance provider has access to lifestyle data, customers can receive a reduced premium similar to way auto insurance rewards clean driving records with reduced premiums.

So you must be wondering who purchased Buckles’ data? The winning bidder was a technology news company called The Next Web, who intends to use the data to highlight the issue of online privacy and what’s at stake ─ issues that will gain greater publicity when the Internet-connected lifestyle becomes the norm. You may call all this entire fiasco absurd, if you will, but the profits Shawn Buckles incurred only serve to illustrate that the information freely taken from us is actually worth money. With that said, does this not raise the moral question that maybe we ought to be entitled to some profit reaped from this data as well? If anything, I think “ahead of its time” is a more befitting description of Buckles’ transaction.

Via Phys.org