The superiority of some data titans such as Google, Apple, Amazon or Facebook is increasingly leading to “data exploitation” at the expense of users, who provide millions and millions of data free of charge every day with posts, orders or translations. Glen Weyl, lecturer at Yale University and researcher at Microsoft, suggests treating “data like work”, i.e. classifying users as data providers. The first “data union” has already been set up in Amsterdam to negotiate with the Data Titans about its exploitation. Karl Marx sends his regards: “Data workers of all countries, unite!”
To what extent such plans are realistic or utopian cannot yet be assessed. In any case, they will initiate a discussion that will lead to new ideas and new forms of cooperation.
In the opinion of experts and others, Germany is lagging behind digitalization. But there are also proactive approaches that present a counter model to the situation described above. Secure data exchange, purchase or sale of data on the basis of an economic valuation, data sovereignty are decisive characteristics of a system architecture, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute and offered as reference architecture by the International Data Spaces Association (IDS). In short: fair trade in the data business. The Advaneo datamarketplace offers practical implementation, fair trade and dealing with one another instead of “data exploitation”.
