Us

Commodify.us provides a platform for people to have greater control over their data. After exporting their data from social media websites, users can use commodify.us to control who has access to it. Commodify.us cuts out the middle man, and participants decide which creative and/or commercial applications have access to their information and activities.

This project intends to correct an imbalance of power in the use of personal data by enabling users to enter a market for their data. As authors and owners, users can become active participants in new streams of creative output. Individuals can change how their data is shared or sold at anytime through options in their profile, including an option to delete their account and data.

We aim to reimagine the potential of relational data, creating a casting agency for virtual personas. The scenarios and narratives constructed need not be tied to traditional media such as film or television, but can evolve into new forms that might include social art projects, new digital narratives, reverse engineering of (fictional) social networks and so on.

While authors and artists propose to use commodify.us datasets for creating new works, the platform also seeks interested buyers of specific target groups or relational databases at the current market value. This revenue will help maintain commodify.us and ensure that participants are paid for the use of their data, unlike existing social media websites.

Commodify.us builds on a rich history of social media projects, like Give Me My Data and Web2.0 Suicide Machine, which have positively and proactively affected online culture, and is one example of a larger effort to raise important questions about data ownership and privacy in the public sphere.