- Streamr has announced that its data unions have moved from public beta to full launch
- Data unions allow individuals to monetize their data rather than giving it away for free
- Tech companies buy data off Streamr users, who receive payment in DATA tokens
Streamr, the blockchain project that wants to return ownership of personal data to individuals, has announced that their data union framework has gone live. By joining a data union, individuals can earn money as they use everyday internet services like video and social media platforms, monetizing data that is currently harvested by those platforms for profit.
The Data Union framework has now moved from public beta and is fully live, as of today! Explore this ethical new way to sell real-time data from apps and services, with user consent and fair renumeration. https://t.co/tNrEkEZ4Ae
— Streamr (@streamr) October 5, 2020
Data Unions Democratize Your Data
Streamr is a pioneer of the data union space, and yesterday’s announcement marks a huge milestone in their aim to revolutionize the collection and usage of personal data. Streamr is focused on returning ownership of data to the user and allowing them to monetize it, rather than allowing tech companies to harvest it for free and use it to generate more revenue by tailoring their products accordingly.
Instead of the likes of Facebook and Twitter grabbing your data without you knowing, using a data union means that your data is sent to a stream on the Streamr Network, access to which is pooled and sold as a product on the Streamr Marketplace to companies who would like to use it.
Revenue generated from this collected data is automatically shared among the data union members and distributed as DATA, the ERC-20 Streamr token.
Streamr Leads the Way
Henri Pihkala, Streamr’s founder and CEO, said in an emailed press release that the launch of data unions was a huge step forward in data democratization:
We’re very excited about the potential of Data Unions and can’t wait to hear from developers who have ambitions to create their own. Democratising the value of our data like this helps to decentralize the monopoly of a few giant corporations, putting control back in the hands of the individual user.
Those looking to test out data unions for themselves can sign up to Swash, one of the first out there, while anyone wishing to know more about Streamr and the concept of data unions should check out our interview with Shiv Malik, the Head of Growth at Streamr:
