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We’ve all seen those legalistic “end-user” agreements that come with every app and seemingly most activities on the internet.
The ones that flash in tiny print, and basically confine the rights of end users to an absolute legal minimum, while granting endlessly expansive rights over user activity data and output to the software makers.
Consumers exchanged all that “free” access to web2 social media and other apps for the right of corporations like Google, Facebook and Amazon to leverage maximum legal power to mine and exploit our lives and data for profit.
It was all there in the fine print on computer screens and cell phones, clicked through without a thought.
Many say the results—enormous power over our digital lives, largely controlled by just a handful of tech corporations—have been our own fault.
Others point out it’s more complicated than that, and corporations share much responsibility for engineering the profit model and abusing its access to content that is us—our lives, our preferences, our commercial and browsing history, our communications and photos and opinions and thoughts, our creativity and more.
Every bit of value that can be squeezed out of our data is being squeezed, every day by said corporations. But that’s not all. Behaviors and opinions that these powerful corporations find threatening are being undercut, subverted, and in some cases, outright crushed, as we are digitally de-personed in broad daylight.
So perhaps it’s time for the establishment of an advocacy collective that works to counter those “End-User Agreements” with something called an “End-User RIGHTS Agreement.”
What might an End-User RIGHTS Agreement contain? Here are some possibilities:
- The right of users to retain access to accounts they create on “free” platforms, barring prosecutable illegal activity
- The right of users to receive regular reports in electronic format, that provide granular details regarding how their data is being used, including amounts that corporations are profiting from such data
- The right of users to SHARE in the profits of that data, at a certain percentage proscribed by the agreement
- The right of users to use the data themselves, and any content they created via the “free” platform, in any way they choose, to profit themselves, thereby
- The right of users to know about third parties who are being provided access to user content and data, AND the ability for end users to restrict or prohibit specific third parties from accessing, using or profit from data content generated by a user’s free account
There is likely much else that might be included in an “End-User RIGHTS Agreement,” but the above would be a start.
How might people get corporations to sign on to such an agreement? By banding together into a block large enough to make it attractive for corporations to want access to the group.
It could be as simple as signing onto a formal optin expressing support for the agreement. Companies that chose to accept and abide by the agreement could tout their adherence to the protocols, and end users would hopefully support companies that supported greater end-user rights.
Can Web3 Help Build Greater End-User Rights?
Web3 technologies hold at least some promise with respect to enlarging the rights of users concerning their data and content in the digital world.
The absence of centralized data repositories is one of Web3’s most distinguishing aspects from the traditional web, a recent Cointelegraph.com article noted. Decentralized storages, like blockchain, offer a single source of verification for private data.
It can encrypt and share information in a system of peer-to-peer networks using protocols and a decentralized data layer, while content-based addressing ensures that the data hasn’t been altered.
Much of emerging Web3 technology is focused on employing noncustodial solutions, as opposed to siloed data monopolies (ie. data only available to corporate entities with sole privileged access), which lock users into proprietary interfaces.
Users will be able to access the same set of private data across various platforms (also known as BYOD) and transfer it freely between storages and applications by utilizing keys.
Changes will also be made to the sign-up procedure, the Cointelegraph article notes. Things like use of email addresses and cell phone numbers to establish and link to social media apps will be replaced with wallet addresses in Web3.
Cointelegraph pointed out that “Sign in with Ethereum,” a project supported by the Ethereum Foundation, is an example of an emerging shift already in use.
Unstoppable Domains, another project, offers an ability to purchase and permanently own a Web3 domain whose ownership token can be stored in a wallet, or transferred at the discretion of an owner, who no longer depends on any central authority.
While ledgers of blockchains are visible and verifiable to the public, wallet addresses can offer a greater measure of anonymity and privacy, as well as controlling ownership of data and digital assets.
Web3 also changes the paradigm for how users can monetize their work. The “likes,” “retweets” and other support possibilities of blockchains revolve around tokens, both fungible and non fungible. These will promise to power, incentivise and reward high-quality material, and allow sharing of data while ensuring authors can receive a fair portion of profits.
There’s more than one way that consumers currently feeling relatively powerless with respect to their digital lives may be able to shift the power back into their own hands.
And it can’t happen soon enough.
For related reading, see:
- “WHAT DEFINES WEB3?” (8 Feb 2022)
- “WEB3 WILL FORCE CHANGE IN THE ENTERPRISE” (8 Mar 2022)
- “ELITES ARE THE PROBLEM THAT MUST BE FACED” (1 Feb 2022)