Stop Trying to Make “Sell Your Data for Money” Happen

The idea of people monetizing their personal data is not new. It has attracted many startups going back to the late 90’s and recently, even politicians floating the idea of a data dividend for all consumers. Today, in the wake of the cookie-pocalypse, we're hearing more about "zero-party data" startups offering the ability to trade info about themselves in exchange for money.

On the surface, it seems like a great idea: people get compensated for the data they share, while companies gain valuable insights: a win, win. However, this model has been attempted numerous times and almost always ends in failure.

Why is that?

It boils down to a few recurring themes:

1. Inadequate Compensation: Many platforms that promised to pay users for their data offered peanuts. When users realized they were getting pennies for what seemed like serious privacy trade-offs, enthusiasm waned.
2. Trust Issues: Companies that attempted this model often faced skepticism. Users were wary about where their data ended up and how it was used, leading to low adoption rates. This proved to be a scale problem as most people won't sign up to share personal information.
3. Unsustainable Business Models: While buying data directly from consumers might seem like a direct method, it often proved economically unviable for businesses in the long run.
4. Regulatory Challenges: With growing concerns about data privacy worldwide, companies attempting to buy user data directly often faced regulatory hurdles and scrutiny.

As the founder of a new startup called UPAID (User Provided Advertising ID), people often assume we are selling data about our users.

Doesn’t UPAID sell data?

No!

We allow users to trade access to a random identifier that they control and can reset at any time. This ID allows advertising companies to collect data without using cookies, your email address, or other shady methods of tracking you. The data they collect is tied this randomly generated string of letters and numbers and doesn’t share any personally identifiable information about you.

This means you aren’t really “selling data”… you are selling access to an ID that makes your non-personally identifiable data valuable.

If you're not convinced selling your personal information to companies is a bad idea, please check out this article from Slate. My favorite quote is, "The underlying issue is not compensation or even privacy in the traditional sense—the issue is power. Personal data must be protected at law through inalienable rights, not pilfered as tradable property in the marketplace."

So, with UPAID, what kind of data are advertisers able to collect about you?

When we talk about data collection in the context of advertising, we’re typically referring to behavioral and interest-based data. Advertisers might gather:

1. Browsing Habits: The types of websites you visit, how long you stay, and the kind of content you engage with.
2. Purchasing Behavior: Which products you looked at, which ones you added to a cart, and what you ended up buying.
3. Content Preferences: The genres of articles, videos, or music you consume the most.
4. Device Usage: The types of devices you use, their operating systems, and your preferred browsers.

When you sign up for UPAID, it ensures the above data is not linked to your personal identity, but to a random identifier that you control, ensuring that while advertisers can understand your behavior, nobody can pinpoint it back to you personally.

Even better- because you control your ID, you can update it any time and any data previously tied to it is instantly forgotten.

Sick of seeing that ad for a product you already bought? Just click the reset ID button and voila, it’s gone.

So what are you getting in return for sharing this ID?

Instead of getting paid to share personal information about yourself (i.e. connecting your social media info, your Google account, your Amazon account, etc.), UPAID makes a very simple revenue share offer to advertisers.

If advertisers want access to our user’s ID’s, they have to pay our users 20% of the cost of every ad that they show to them.

That means, if advertisers collectively spend $20 showing a user ads, the user will earn $4.

While the amount of money users generate is not lifechanging, it offers people a way to earn passive income that can be used for small purchases like a streaming subscription, micropaywalls for one off articles, AI-usage tokens, or even sending “tips” to send to content creators you like, all while seeing more relevant ads and helping the content creators with their ad sales.

Conclusion

Don't sell your personal information for pittances. Once your personal information gets sold into the market, there is very little you can do to gain back control.

Instead, consider solutions that allow you to maintain your anonymity and control the actual ID that any data collected about you is tied to. When you own the ID, you own the ability to make your data valuable without actually selling it.

If that's interesting to you, check out UPAID at https://upaid.website .