Data protection issues: former Last.fm founder comes to the rescue
Remember when your data was actually private? Probably not. Your personal preferences and random social media likes are being used by companies as they please, and even if you decide to go off the grid, it might already be too late. A lot of our personal information is already out there in the online world being sold as an asset. The 21st century has turned human beings into products and keeping our personal data private is one of the largest issues our society faces.
Since the proliferation of the information revolution, large companies fail to get data protection right: Facebook is merging Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and everyone is freaking out. Is Mark Zuckerberg bored of reading each of our private conversations via different apps and now wants a one-stop shop to spy on us? It might sound crazy, but it’s not. Users are becoming more and more aware of how everything they share has consequences, but luckily other companies are emerging to fight for our right to privacy.
Michael Breidenbrücker, a former co-founder of Last.fm, a music-centric site that tackles social network needs amongst millennials, has joined a team of entrepreneurs to launch a new technology that allows companies and individuals to privatize and own their data stored on a decentralized system. Enter: Slant.
Slant claims it has developed a protocol that guarantees data cannot be decrypted or hacked. Data gets split and distributed into multiple nodes all containing a fraction of the full code. Data can be sold to make money and used to sell products and services. According to Breidenbrücker, Slant proposes a new economic model that is centered on data as the most important value driver. Slant’s systems allow companies and individuals to control the use of their data ordinarily used to make “Siren Servers” such as Google and Facebook profitable, as well as instances of data mining and where AI is concerned. This development enables companies to switch to decentralized technology and provide a new monetized offering for their users. But the question remains, are we ready to embrace decentralized technology to protect our data?
In a world that becomes even more digital every day and that has turned data into a valuable asset, Slant has a created a solution that aims to keep our valuable data safe from the giants companies, such as Facebook or Google, that want to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, decentralized solutions are heavily linked with blockchain-based technology which still holds a bad reputation amongst users. The blockchain community has to overcome the challenge and prove themselves worthy and reliable, so users can feel confident enough to trust them with their precious asset, data.