“What the digital revolution must bring with it is the right to own digital data, which must be aligned with the classic instruments of property rights: Usus (I use my data as I want), Abusus (I destroy my data as I want, but without an extravagant ‘right to forget’) and Fructus (I sell my data for profit, if I want). The right to own personal data would promote the establishment of a data market where the approximately 3.5 billion internet users worldwide can demand real value for sharing their data, which corresponds to the values they create.
The situation would fundamentally change, and technical solutions are already available today to solve practical problems. For example, each user could have a ‘smart account’ for managing data, where the information and agreed usage conditions are stored. As for price determination, intermediaries would probably emerge who can negotiate directly with the major platforms on behalf of millions of users, which would result in a functioning marketplace over time.”
– Gaspard Koenig, “The digital feudalism – the internet has thrown us back into the data middle ages – data should be treated like capital”, Handelsblatt, 10., 11., 12. August 2018, No. 153
