The world has seen great technological advancement over the last several years, and plenty of them have made our lives a lot easier.
Anyone can make a payment to someone on the other side of the world without leaving their computer. In a few clicks, you can order food, clothes, or even a new phone, computer, or use the maps to navigate the world with ease and never get lost, even in completely new areas.
You can listen to your favorite song, watch your favorite film, and binge-watch your favorite show at any time, and pretty much at any place. However, don’t think that all of these benefits came for free. We did have to pay for their use, and we are paying for it constantly by giving away our privacy.
Giving away online privacy: Is it worth it?
Of course, giving away your online privacy doesn’t seem like a bad trade for all the benefits that you get in return. After all, everything we have mentioned so far was only scratching the surface of what you can do online.
And, in exchange, you just have to click a single button that says I agree at the end of the large document that you didn’t even read.
The problem is that you are giving away a lot of invasive information. You are giving away your anonymity and privacy, as the sites you are visiting ” as well as other online entities ” can see your activities. They can see where you go, and when. What things you are interested in, what ads you click, and what things you search.
They can see what you bought, and recommend similar products, or bombard you with ads about specific services in your current area, which you provided by using navigation.
The same is true when it comes to financial transactions, which reveal the users’ volume, individual purchases, remittances, location history, social network usage, and all kinds of patterns in their behavior. And while privacy supporters are fighting the battle to increase online privacy, you have every right to try and resist this as much as possible.
In fact, many aim to do so through cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. These solutions provide greater privacy and anonymity, although it is worth noting that greater is not the same as total.
Data in crypto and blockchain industries
Cryptocurrencies were built upon the idea of transparency. However, they still let you remain private if you truly wish it. At least, they let you be more private than traditional banks ever would. More than that, crypto and blockchain technology aim to give you greater control over your own data.
Blockchain, in particular, can let you choose who can see it. It can let you monetize it, and it can give you the ability to only deliver it to trusted entities, instead of anyone who happens to be collecting nearby.
This technology can completely revolutionize advertising by letting you provide information to companies directly while avoiding third parties. That way, you would know who you gave your information to, and what they aim to do with it.
Data still needs to be collected, of course, either to identify and stop online criminals, or for other purposes, such as advertising, market-making, and alike.
Companies like Kairon Labs are in charge of building algorithms for blockchain tracking and monitoring solutions that feed the data into these algorithms. By doing so, they can see the state of the market, and help build greater liquidity, which, in turn, improves trading and prices. This is, essentially, what market-making is.
Kairon Labs’ co-founder, Jens Willemen, explained it by saying that, “Market makers provide constant 24/7 price quotes on both sides of the order book. This allows other market participants to buy and sell at prices very close to the spot price of the asset without impacting the market too much.”
This is just one use of data, but it is immediately clear that it all works as a machine that supports itself. However, it all still comes down to data, and that data comes from you, as a user, and others like you. With that in mind, you have every right to demand that your privacy is respected, and to only feed the system with the data you are willing to provide.
Final remarks
The fact is that total privacy on the internet is unachievable. You need to give data in order to get it, and it all comes down to that transaction. But, as a new sector that specializes in new ways of conducting transactions, crypto and blockchain are in a perfect position to give you a greater amount of control.
This control is what is lacking right now, and while it will not make things perfect, it will make things better for all of those who value their privacy and worry about how their information moves online.
