TRUSTS at the 2nd Data Sharing Winter School 

Antragama Ewa Abbas from TU Delft participated in the panel talk about business models for data sharing session in the 2nd Data Sharing Winter School, organized by the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) on December 7 – 9, 2021. The event is a venue to deepen the knowledge about data sharing, as well as to connect with renowned experts in the data economy. Antragama presented lessons learned about data market business models and governance, based on his on-going-research and his TRUSTS project involvement.

Two taxonomies for data markets were developed to examine business models that exist in practice. Based on these two studies, the possible services that can potentially help data markets sustain were elaborated. These are:

  1. The value propositions that offer a solution instead of raw data trading such as:
    1. Data cleansing to ensure data quality
    2. Data analysis to create aggregated datasets
    3. Personal assistance offering in data sale and acquisition;
  2. The use of novel technological applications to enhance trust such as decentralized platform architectures, smart contracts, or cryptocurrencies as a payment method;
  3. The existence of services that aggregate personal data for commercial purposes, i.e., C2B harvesting by data marketplaces/aggregators; and
  4. The possibility to harvest open data sets.
Panel of Talk: Business Models of Data Sharing

© IDSA

Participants were generally enthusiastic about the session. A participant specifically asked about the project, “What do TRUSTS’ components contribute to the EU data spaces?” To engage with the question, two possible commercialization strategies were discussed. One possible contribution is to have a potential spin-off at the end of the project and have an operational data market. Another option is to license specific technology based on the outcome of the project, such as privacy technology in the recommender systems, deanonymization and anonymization toolkit, or Registry of data Markets (RoD) that enables interoperability between other data markets.

This discussion is beneficial in stimulating the discussion of business model and governance for data markets—especially in the academic setting—because the current examination tends to focus on technological-oriented research (see here for further elaboration). The discussion is in line with the TRUSTS approach of multidisciplinary—as a functioning data economy can only be achieved by addressing technical, business, and legal/ethical issues.

 

Source:

ABBAS, A. E., AGAHARI, W., VAN DE VEN, M., ZUIDERWIJK, A. & DE REUVER, M. 2021. Business Data Sharing through Data Marketplaces: A Systematic Literature Review. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 16, 3321-3339.

BERGMAN, R. 2020. A Business Model Taxonomy for Data Marketplaces. Master of Science, Delft University of Technology.

VAN DE VEN, M., ABBAS, A. E., KWEE, Z. & DE REUVER, M. Creating a Taxonomy of Business Models for Data Marketplaces.  34th Bled eConference – Digital Support from Crisis to Progressive Change, 2021 Online.