PDATA - The Global Decentralized Marketplace For Personal Data On The Blockchain

Introduction:
Have you ever wondered why companies are periodically conducting surveys or organizing lotteries with great incentives for your participation? Yes, you probably have guessed right. Most of the companies are in it for your personal data. Data always have been very valuable to companies, but with the era of digitalisation and Internet of Things (IoT), data will become the gold (or you also could say "oil") of the future. Your data is mostly used for research purposes in order to evaluate user preferences. Sometimes your data are even sold to other companies without you even noticing. Statistics show that yearly a volume of 250 billion USD is achieved alone with trading of consumer data. Data collection and data trading have become one of the most profitable, but also most demanding business in the 21th century.

Companies - The Battle For Consumer Data:
On the other hand side, companies also face problems when acquiring consumer data. Due to low incentives, such as often having only few winners to receive a big prize, participants tend to give intentionally false or inaccurate information. Furthermore currently existing surveys and data collection methods are very costly and time consuming regarding preparation and conduction due to the lack of professional and rewarding survey platforms.

Consumers - The Battle To Gain Back Control Over Their Data:
As a consumer you often don't know who actually does have your data. Some personal information, such as E-Mail adresses or phone numbers of you even can be found on the internet and cannot be removed easily. Most people have lost control over their personal data. An indication for that is when you receive E-Mails with advertisements from companies without even remembering to subscribe for their newsletter. Also advertising phone calls, catalogues send to your home or even passive advertisement in form of personalized ads in form of website banners (for example when surfing on facebook) are strong indication that your data is fully controlled by companies trying to target you with their products.

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PDATA - The Blockchain Solution:
PDATA is a project, which have found a solution for the personal data industry, by using the blockchain technology. The goal of this project is to build a decentralized marketplace for personal data. Through the advantages of the blockchain technology, PDATA aims to offer a secure, but also transparent way to buy and sell personal data on their platform using smart contracts. By doing so, PDATA will give you the opportunity to gain back control over your personal data, so that unauthorized third-parties will be no longer able to get your data without your permission unless you agree on a settled monetary payment. With their working product called "Opiria", a decentralized consumer research platform, the PDATA project aims to revolutionize the personal data industry not only in favor of consumers, but also companies.

Opiria Clients:
Opiria has an already working product and is currently already used by renowned companies around the world, such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, P&G and many more. With Opiria's consumer research platform, companies are able to gain access to real time information from customers around the globe, who use the Opiria app on their smartphone.

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What's In It For The Customer?
With Opiria, customers can finally choose which information they want to share and which not. Customers therefore have better control over their data, which not only leads to improved data privacy, but also to higher anonymity level, if wanted. Additionally to that, customers get fair compensation for sharing their data to the companies.

What's In It For The Company?
Companies can finally gather customer data, without feeling bad about it, since customers are greatly rewarded for participating and sharing their data. This not only leads to higher quality of personal data, but also easens up the very time consuming process of acquiring data. Data furthermore can be easily gathered from specific groups who are using the Opiria platform, leading to more efficient target marketing and higher sales potential.

PDATA-Token And Usage:
Currently the PDATA project is doing their ICO (Initial Coin Offering. During this time PDATA-Tokens can be acquired in exchange for Ethereum.

PDATA tokens can be used by companies to either buy consumer's personal data or to conduct surveys with consumers and therefore rewarding them with tokens. On the other hand side, consumers can use their token to exchange them for fiat-money or other tokens on different exchanges. As an incentive to keep their PDATA tokens, a higher amount of PDATA tokens hold, will increase the likelyhood of receiving more surveys or data requests from companies.

Potential Competitors:

Source: Own Illustration
Opiria does have competitors, since the consumer data industry is not new. Some of the platforms are already for over 10 years on the market and already have gained a lot of experience in handling personal data and conducting surveys. To name a few of them (which I'm familiar with), Nielsen, Ipsos, GFK or Kantar are quite popular. Surely there are more data brokerages and market research platforms on the market. The problem of those platforms are mainly that they take a high percentage of their income for themselves and only share very little to participants. Furthermore many of the platforms have quite high minimum payout limits of 50$ or more, which takes years for participants to reach. Additionally to that I have experienced that surveys are quite rare and many of them did not fit my profile. Non of the platforms currently use the advantages of the blockchain technology, that's why Opiria could have the upper hand in the future.

My Opinion:
Blockchain technology finally offers customers the opportunity to gain back access to their data, while companies can benefit from higher quality of consumer data. In my opinion the PDATA project offers a great tradeoff for both parties. As the project still needs a lot of development and their launch of the blockchain based platform is settled for May 2019, Opiria for sure needs some time to get broader adoption by more users and companies. I will keep you updated on this project, so stay tuned for some updates later on.

Further Information:
Want to know more about the PDATA project? Take a look at their official website and their whitepaper for more information. Also subscribe to their official communication channels to stay up to date. Any questions, feel free to comment below.

Website: https://opiria.io/
Whitepaper: https://opiria.io/static/docs/Opiria-PDATA-Whitepaper.pdf
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