A new landscape for the Internet with your safe, private and self determined view of the world

The Internet today is the wild west with opportunistic cowboys rounding us up like Bison for our pelts and meat. Some of the cowboys offer us ways to conveniently connect with family, or get free email, help us find things on the net or conveniently carry our life around in our pocket but in the end they cost us our pelts. Other cowboys shoot their guns and get a stampede going to get the herd going in a specific political direction to the herds peril. In the end its all about pelts.

Bison need preserving. They deserve dignity. And more so do we. People.

At the moment there is a voice here or a voice there murmuring and sometimes openly complaining about feeling herded. But the herd is definitely feeling the abuse.

So what can we do?

Can we say no? Can we do without our phones, Internet search, email, photo sharing? Well…. No… but can we slow down the cowboys?

What cowboys need is our interaction, our attention, our compliance. Our online head space. In Internet terms they need… our data. Our private data. Its the cowboys life blood.

And to slow them down and get them to behave in a more civil manner all we need to do is build and use some tools that allow us to have more control over our digital lives… our data. And to keep it under our control. It’s our pelt. We need it to keep warm in winter.

We need a mechanism that pushes back at the cowboys and stops them from running roughshod over our lives.

The blood brain barrier of our data

Like the way our blood brain barrier protects our brains from pathogens in our blood and preserves our valuable brain cells, we need a membrane that protects us from the abuse of our data in commerce and thought.

A filter that says to others… what data do you need? Why do you need it? How are you going to use it? How long for? Who is going to use it? And can I trust them?

That sounds like a lot of work. And it is. But its your digital life, your thinking capacity thats at stake. Your intent.

The lifeblood of the Internet is communications and information driven by lots of good will and generosity of others. But commercial and political self interest also permeates the Internet’s ecosystems. This self interest is like pathogens in our blood. If these get to our brain we start getting sick and eventually die. Their self interest manipulates us, abuses us and uses us at growing personal cost.

But the blood brain membrane also encourages good things to easily get to the brain. Oxygen, glucose, nutrients. All the goodies.

So what is the digital equivalent of our blood brain barrier?

Our data concierge or steward

My good friend Woody Buckner coined the phrase “data concierge” or “digital concierge” and this concept neatly fits the positive role of the data blood brain barrier.

Your concierge could be a service, a person, it could be AI that is tuned to your interest, not those of the cowboys. But the point is your concierge sits on your side of the data barrier. Your concierge protects you but also actively ferrets out opportunity for you.

The blood brain barrier not only stops pathogens, it makes it easy for oxygen, nutrients and energy to easily flow through.

When a new food delivery service opens in your area, your concierge finds out if food you are interested in is available while keeping your name, address, health needs and tastes confidential. And even when you do order, your concierge makes sure to hold the service accountable for how and why they use your customer information.

Your concierge is someone who sits on your side of every interaction, not only policing abuses but extracting value, actively fossicking about looking for opportunity.

Could this happen?

In some ways it has already started. Tim Berners Lee’s “Solid” project is nearing maturity as are a great number of privacy frameworks and self sovereign identity projects around the world. The W3C is sponsoring more and more privacy centric frameworks and standards.

But central to any of this is a mind set. A selflessness of a corporation or a politician that is willing to dignify a persons intent and privacy over the short term gains of abusing a digital relationship.

Will a health minister use general AI and mass unsolicited data pools to make expedient politically popular health service decisions? Or will they voluntarily and actively help set up and support personal digital health concierges where each citizens individual health and well being is paramount.

Where corporate self interest, abuses and herd optimisations are kept outside. Kept away from our digital selves.

Will health industry corporations acquiesce to or even selflessly collaboratively sponsor personal health concierges?

Even industry is learning that mass data pools and AI, while powerful, serve the commercial interests of the cowboys and ultimately curtails their opportunities to do what they do namely serve the customer. Of course they want efficiencies. Of course they want data. But when it is the cowboys that are middle manning the data, and when it is the cowboys and their AI algorithms that make decisions for the customers then no one wins except the cowboys.

A new landscape

So what does this new landscape look like. A land of wide open spaces. Where the herd roams free.

It starts with a digital identity that is truly personal. Not a gmail account. Not a hotmail account. An unbranded, secure and resilient personal identity.

From here you need personal data stores ( Tim Berners Lee calls them PODs) administered by smart or automated concierges or stewards that work in your interests. Where your medical records are secured and stored. Where your email is stored. Your bank records. Your digital life.

From here your concierge finds services that compete for your business. Email services, medical practitioners, insurance companies. Everything.

Who pays for all that data storage and concierge service work? I agree with Woody that good conscience corporations will come together into consortiums with entreprenuers to advertise and ply their trade. In some cases customers may even contribute to the consortium.

The herd is not being hunted to extinction. Its only just now starting to recognise thats is being herded and exploited. But as more of us wake up to it and see the real value in our pelts, the sooner we can curtail the cowboys yahoo ways and get back to the good old days of peaceful grazing and happy coexistance.

First published on Medium | 5 min read

Chris Bird #web3 #selfsovereignty #pciglobal