Web 3.0 Meets MPC: Where Consumers Own Their Data
By Kurt Nielsen, PhD, President of Partisia Blockchain Foundation
Our world has changed in so many ways since the launch of the World Wide Web now nearly 30 years ago in 1991. Our current internet infrastructure, known as ‘Web 2.0’, could be described as information centric. The problem? Data and power are centralized in the hands of a few large industry players. What’s more, global events in recent years means individuals are now privy to the dangers of Web 2.0 and the potential misuse of their data. In contrast, the next generation of internet, Web 3.0, could be described as user centric. Built on a decentralized infrastructure that empowers the individual, Web 3.0 is set to give data ownership and power back to the individual.
Web 3.0’s decentralized protocol will allow individuals to connect to an internet where they can own and earn profit for the time and data they give to large internet companies like Google and Facebook. Web 3.0 promises a more secure and transparent environment for the holding and sharing of data. While today’s blockchain ecosystem is taking us in that direction, without true efforts to implement privacy protocols within Web 3.0, individuals won’t enjoy the freedoms once promised. This is where Partisia Blockchain and Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) fits in. In a number of ways, the Partisia Blockchain embodies the same best in class attributes of blockchain today. However, through the close integration of blockchain and our unique MPC solution, Partisia Blockchain delivers the highest levels of privacy and confidentiality across all platforms with cross chain capabilities making integration easy.
At Partisia Blockchain, we are focused on building a new sustainable data-driven society by facilitating a balance between protecting and utilizing data. While transparency is built into blockchain by design, Partisia Blockchain’s MPC solution takes that further, and introduces an element of confidentiality through a network of computation nodes that process encrypted data with zero-knowledge about that data.
MPC works through a network of computation nodes that compute directly on encrypted data, while maintaining zero-knowledge about the content of the data itself. So, when applied to the internet or a social media platform, Partisia Blockchain’s introduction of Secure Multiparty Computation into Web 3.0 allows them to maintain contact with targeted individual users, but this way, internet platforms can do this without knowing exactly who those users are.
This also gives way for a new data revenue model that would hold the potential to remove the extortionate power held by brokers, coordinators and other middlemen including world’s tech giants. If individuals own their data and are in a position where they control who can access and leverage that data, a new world of opportunity is unleashed where users are in a position to earn their fair share of the billion dollar pie those tech giants are generating year on year.
Today’s internet users are much more educated around technology and the potential dangers it holds. Platforms must win over the trust of their users now more than before. If internet platforms want to be sustainable and want to make a positive impact on society, they must put privacy at the centre. Partisia Blockchain and MPC are making that change possible.
