Data as a Currency and Cloud-Based Data Lockers

With large data volumes being generated through Google search, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the increasingly instrumented physical world (with embedded sensors), the authors discuss whether such data can be the basis of a new transactional relationship between people and companies in which both sides benefit from new products and services and increased economic growth. However, the key distinction from previous discussions is whether the existence of a global cloud computing industry (consisting of datacenters located in different parts of the world) can be used to facilitate such transactional relations, with awareness of data privacy and access management. The authors propose the use of data as a currency, to enable consumers to directly monetize their own data and request services (based on the "value" their data holds within a marketplace).