Tim Berners-Lee is widely credited with the invention of World Wide Web around 1989, though it remained a theoretical exercise until the implementation of its principles in 1993 through a browser called Mosaic by a team led by Marc Andreesen at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. The rapid progress of web is testament to the notion of hyperlinked information.

Recently, Tim has moved on to the next web. He has come up with the idea called Linked Data. In simple terms, every one can put data about themselves on the web which are linked to other data and that the data is decoupled from applications that access them. One could argue that we are already there.

For example, if you store your data in the cloud with vendors like Apple, Google or Microsoft, there are literally thousands of applications that can access the data with your consent. In other words, the data is decoupled from the application. The methodology used by any application to fetch data anywhere is referred to as the Application Programming Interface or API. It is true that there is no single standard for this and each system has its own description of API and even more annoying is that these change so often. However, I am sure there is much more to this that we don’t understand but he does!

One thing that I am always interested in how to use these concepts to bring fairness to the game of data. What follows are my thinking based on some of what I understand to be the linked data concept and I may be totally off base here!

In this linked data concept, I see that access control is fundamental. In other words, the owner of the data has total control over who gets to see what portion of the data and who can just access the data and who can potentially edit the data with the owner’s permission. For example, I may want to give my friends access to my personal information such as address, phone number, email address etc. And I will allow my physician to update my medical information and will choose to share it with my family members.

Where this gets exciting for me is that I would like the data tagged in such a way that access to it is tracked carefully. Why? If we can do this, then I want the companies who use my data for their benefit to cut me a check. In other words, I am willing to share my data based on the compensation that a company is willing to give. Once we get into this game, I totally understand that the so-called “free” services may no longer be available to me.

If I tag my personal data so that every time Google uses it in their algorithm to recommend to me the next best thing in the world, I want a cut in ad revenue that they make using my data. Since the data is all linked, one should be able to figure this out. I am not greedy and will not ask for an unreasonable amount, but I still want to be compensated. I used Google as an example, but it applies to every service that uses my data in any form.

I recently met the chief technology officer from a company that maps your genes for a small fee. They add your data as a part of a large database that is used to help develop drug for diseases etc, or in their words “for the greater good of the world”. Of course, they anonymize the data.

“Yeah”, I asked “but, are you not making billions of dollars in the process?”. She said, it costs billions of dollars to develop a drug and go through the approval process etc. However, we all know that biotech companies are very profitable and this argument does not wash. But, if I can tag my data to see how it was used and whether it resulted in the discovery of a drug (it is all technology, you see, so we don’t have to worry about the minutiae of how exactly this will be done), then I need a cut (or free medicine). Nothing wrong with that.

I know that this is not the first time I have written about this, but in the context of my interpretation of linked data, it all is beginning to make sense.

I understand that we are giving away valuable data about ourselves to various organizations in return for “free” services. The difficulty we face is one of valuation on both. What is the value of my data and what would it cost if all these free services started charging me for all that they provide in return for not using my data at all. Frankly, many will not be in business if we chose not to share our data!

Somehow, we need to get to know the answer to the valuation question about our data and the “free services” which are strongly linked…