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In the United States, 92 percent of people reported being concerned about their privacy while using the Internet, highlighting how recent massive data breaches and stories about Big Tech data monetization have eroded Internet users’ trust. This has been particularly amplified by the emergence of opaque artificial intelligence systems and the evolving socio-political landscapes.
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Gaps in regulations
Although the European Union’s 2018 General Data Protection Regulation has set a benchmark as the first comprehensive legal act aimed at improving the privacy rights of internet users, it is not without shortcomings.
The GDPR and subsequent regulatory frameworks have been largely ineffective at enforcing and holding Big Tech companies, especially Google and Meta, accountable for collecting and selling user data. It reportedly takes years, sometimes more than four, for claims of potential GDPR violations to be resolved. The delays result from complex procedures involving multiple agencies and countries handling complaints against specific companies, creating significant backlogs and weakening the law’s ability to enforce and enforce its mandate.
In the United States, the lack of federal data protection legislation has led numerous states to take matters into their own hands. The patchwork regulatory reality in the US can do more harm than good, as variations on specific issues create endless compliance complexities for companies operating in numerous states.
Users then receive varying degrees of data protection at any time based on their location. Furthermore, developing individual compliance programs for individual government regulators for small and medium-sized businesses increases costs, limiting their ability to compete with Big Tech and other large companies.
Meanwhile, Big Tech has thrown its weight behind it with intense lobbying efforts, claiming that any legislation with real teeth will undermine innovation. While this is a discussion worth having, there are companies whose business models are heavily dependent on Web3’s expanded role
This is precisely where web3’s decentralized infrastructure can bypass centralized entities, whose interests may not be aligned with most users, to provide a higher standard of data protection.
Blockchain – and web3 more broadly – has had countless iterations and use cases of its technology, designed to build wealth through games, crypto schemes or other avenues. However, many projects and developers miss or choose 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 advertising revenue. An example of this is tomi, a DAO-managed project that uses web3s> Read more: Streamlining sustainability with decentralized data | Opinion