How Breakout Lets Users Monetize Their Data
Monetizing data is big business. Governments and companies are using data to make sure that they can make a lot of money, take power, and beat their competitors. Mobile apps and especially social media apps also monetize their data. It’s a $150 billion dollar a year industry/
Data privacy is non-existent on most platforms. They collect the information without your knowledge. Internet consumers produce valuable data daily with regular activities such as surfing the internet, posting on social media, or researching products to buy. In an era where big data is the norm, it’s important to consider who controls this data and how to monetize it for yourself.
What is Data Monetization?
Many people don’t know that every action they do online earns money for someone else. Knowing this, some companies pay consumers to use their services, as Nielsen Media Research does with its TV ratings. Data companies buy the information and sell it to marketing and research businesses.
A company could decide to give your location to another company and build a new location-aware product. This is data reselling or brokering. It’s when businesses make money off every click, scroll, and like.
What Information is Being Monetized?
When you visit a website, your activity generates data. This can include the sites you frequent, the time you spend on each one, and how much network bandwidth you use.
The following collect your information:
- Internet Service Provider (ISP)
- Social media sites (Twitter, Facebook)
- Search engine (Google, Bing)
Other apps and services that collect your information that you might not realize include, but are not limited to:
- Cloud storage (Dropbox)
- Online security (McAfee, Norton)
- Online shopping (Amazon, Walmart)
- News and media sites (Reuters, New York Times)
- Advertising companies (Google, Facebook)
The value of this data to businesses is tremendous. There’s no way to stop providing the data, giving up many modern conveniences. Everyday actions generate valuable data that would fly under the radar if it weren’t for free services offered by companies like Google and Facebook.
Search engines show advertisers the different terms and questions people are searching for. This information helps the advertisers make more ads that are more likely to get your attention. Facebook’s advertisements, for example, rely on the data they collect from your activity.
Each click you make helps marketers target you and improve their ad performance. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google sell the bulk data and make a ton of money off the “free” social media site.
This is the same process that every company goes through – collecting data about user’s habits and online activity. No personal data is shared – no company is getting your birthdate, your bank account info, your social security, or anything like that. The data that is collected is for categorization.
As an example, companies that are looking to serve you ads are looking for people who fit their typical customer profiles and perhaps they’re looking for females, 18-30 years of age, in a certain state or city, or shop at Crate & Barrel, they watch Netflix, they get gas twice a week, etc, etc. There’s nothing nefarious about this. Companies need this data to help them spend their advertising dollars efficiently.
How Do You Know if Your Data is Can Be Monetized?
Because businesses have complex ways of evaluating how much your data is worth, it might be hard to know if your information is valuable.
Is your information unique?
How many people would be interested in it?
These are the kinds of questions companies might ask you before they decide to buy your data.
The only way to find out if monetizing data is profitable for you is by opting into a consumer panel or service that promises to keep track of how much money you could make by selling your information.
Who is Controlling Your Data Privacy?
Your ISP controls your internet use. The ISP allows you to access the internet by providing a connection for your devices to connect through. Social media sites allow users to share information with friends, family, brands, and other companies.
These sites are harvesting their users’ data to generate revenue for their company through advertising or selling your internet usage data to third parties. Users are unaware of what information is being shared through these sites or how the platform uses their data.
What are the Data Privacy Risks?
There’s no requirement for companies monetizing your data in the U.S. and many other countries to get your consent before selling it to third parties. Businesses may use it for targeted marketing, sold in bulk without the user’s knowledge.
Even if you are against the idea of companies monetizing your data, there is very little you can do to stop them. Most businesses that collect data, such as Google and Facebook, have service agreements that users must agree to before using their products.
These terms give the company full rights to do whatever they want with the data they collect, including selling it without your knowledge or consent. In addition, agreements with third-party companies or other businesses that collect data through these sites allow them to share the information.
Who Benefits from Monetizing Data?
The monetization of data by companies benefits them. However, it can also help the user. If an app offers to monetize your data, then share the revenue with you, you might be more likely to use the app, especially if you are already using it. This type of revenue sharing is available by selling your data to other companies or charging advertisers to access it.
What is the Breakout app?
Breakout is a free audio app that gives you control over your private data. You decide who can access your information, like preferences and selected interests. Not only that, but you also get to define how they can use it. The beauty of the Breakout app is it allows users to monetize their data by giving them control over it.
How does Breakout collect data?
The Breakout App uses DataVault to collect data from the app. DataVault is a system that allows users to manage their personal information and decide what they do with it. This means users can sell their data directly to other companies or keep it private.
Regarding the partnership between Breakout and DataVault, Nathaniel Bradley, co-founder, and CEO of Data Vault Holdings, explains, “Breakout offers a unique opportunity to evolve social media platforms toward a more favorable, accessible, and financially viable future. Consumers are tired of social media platforms that use consumer data to line their own pockets. Today, through this partnership, we automatically and systematically place a portion of the revenue back into the pockets of users.”
Monetizing Data with Breakout Social
The Breakout app lets users’ monetize their data through an opt-in process. When users download the app, they will have the option to connect their other social media accounts.
The app automatically scrapes user behavior data – things like your location, the businesses you shop at, your age group, and things like that. This is exactly the same time of data that is collected by every social media app and no personal information is stored – your date of birth, your passwords, credit card numbers are all safe because none of that data is collected.
Essentially, a user’s data looks something like this:
Age demographic, Geographic location, stores you like to shop, restaurants you like, and so on.
Companies that want this data don’t actually get any of that data – they are allowed only to serve ads to groups they select such:
Males, 18-30 years old, in Miami Florida, who enjoy fishing, surfing, These are data buckets based on interests, geo-location and interests.
Users can sell access to their non-personally identifiable data or choose not to sell it at all. The user gets to decide how their data is sold and how much. Once a user has decided to sell his/her data, they’ll be prompted to connect to our market exchange by creating a profile where they’ll be guided through the process.
In addition, users can decide how long they sell their data for and what type of company gets to access it. For example, a user can choose to sell access to their data for one year and only to research companies. The same user may decide not to sell their data at all if they do not want to.
The Breakout app is the best way to take control of your private data. This free audio app allows you to monetize your non-personally identifiable data so that other companies can’t access it without getting permission from you. With this unique tool at hand, users are in complete control over what information they share and who has access to it for how long.
The beauty of the Breakout App is they allow users to monetize their data by giving them control over it.
By using the Breakout app, users can sell their non-personally identifiable data to brands or research companies. They get to decide how their data is sold and for how much. Users can sell access to their non-personally identifiable data or choose not to sell it at all.
In addition, users have access to all the other benefits of the free audio, social media app, such as no censorship, no threats of social media jail, and no hidden location tracking. The app is supported on the Ethereum blockchain and also lets users create and sell NFTs.
You can read more about Breakout’s monetization process on our website and especially on our Influencers page.
