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In the United States, 92 per cent of individuals reported concern over their privacy while using the internet, highlighting how recent massive data breaches and narratives around Big Tech data monetization have eroded internet users’ trust. This has been especially heightened by the rise of opaque artificial intelligence systems and evolving sociopolitical landscapes.
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Gaps in regulation
While the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation in 2018 set a benchmark as the first comprehensive legal act aimed at enhancing internet users’ privacy rights, it is not without its shortcomings.
GDPR and subsequent regulatory frameworks have largely been ineffective at enforcing and holding Big Tech companies, particularly Google and Meta, accountable for collecting and selling user data. Claims surrounding potential GDPR violations have reportedly taken years, sometimes more than four, to be handled. The delays stem from complex procedures involving multiple agencies and countries handling complaints against specific companies, creating significant backlogs and weakening the act’s ability to enforce and uphold its mandate.
In the United States, the absence of federal legislation on data protection has led numerous states to take matters into their own hands. The US’s patchwork regulatory reality may create more harm than good, as variations on specific matters create endless compliance complexities for businesses operating across numerous states.
Users then receive varying degrees of data protection based on their location at any given time. Furthermore, for small- and medium-sized businesses, developing individual compliance programs for individual state regulators heightens costs that limit their ability to compete with Big Tech and other large corporations.
Meanwhile, Big Tech has been throwing its weight around with intense lobbying efforts, claiming any sort of legislation with real teeth to it will undermine innovation. While this is a discussion worth having, companies whose business model is highly dependent on>Web3’s heightened role
This is precisely where web3’s decentralized infrastructure can bypass centralized entities, whose interests may not align with most users, to provide a higher standard of data protection.
Blockchain—and web3 more broadly—have had countless iterations and use cases of its technology designed to try and build wealth through games, crypto schemes, or other avenues. However, many projects and developers are either missing or choosing to ignore the potential they have in protecting user data.
Thanks to blockchain’s inherent encryption technology and immutable ledger, some web3-based privacy projects are staking their claim as an alternative to the current web2 system that dominates online interactions to profit from ad revenue. One such example is tomi, a DAO-governed project that leverages web3’s> Read more: Streamlining sustainability with decentralized data | Opinion
