Data privacy is a start, but we need to go beyond just having some control over our data to owning it. Internet data is used to control access to information, whether it is through personalized advertising, a personalized feed, or a search engine. These all display content based on your and other user’s data.

Unfortunately there is not much competition in this space. Only a few companies own massive amounts of user data that they can leverage to tailor content, putting them at an advantage over any new competitor.

If users owned their own data it could open this industry up to competition. Instead of incumbents being the only ones with access to the necessary data to optimize their content for individuals users could choose which applications and companies could use their information.

MIT has built a platform, Solid, to enable user ownership of and control over the use of their data. Inrupt is a startup founded to help Solid succeed. It is still in the early stages, but could be the basis for increasing consumer control over access to information.