Privacy-Aware Business Models
This section discusses three alternative business models to the giants in web search, app development, and advertising. These companies and platforms prioritize user privacy, personal data ownership, and freedom from unwanted advertising and tracking. At its core, each of these models aims to democratize the web by shifting the focus away from consumer exploitation and towards user welfare and agency.
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that prioritizes user privacy. It does not store user data and is free to use as a browser extension or mobile app. DuckDuckGo currently processes over 60 million search queries a day. In comparison, Google processes over 3.5 billion search queries a day. As of June 2020, DuckDuckGo had a share of approximately 1.5% in the market for search engines. This summary describes how DuckDuckGo works, its business model, competitors, and implications for innovation and competition policy.
Solid
A revolutionary approach to data ownership and privacy, Solid is a tech stack developed by the founder of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. Solid’s mission is to decentralize the web by doing away with huge data silos, providing users ownership over their personal data, and reshaping the nature of competition among digital companies.
Brave
Brave is an open-source, privacy-focused browser that blocks third-party ads and is able to load pages twice as fast as Chrome or Firefox. It was founded in 2015 by the creator of Javascript and the Mozilla Project. This summary explains how Brave operates a decentralized digital ad-exchange using its own cryptocurrency, the Basic Attention Token (BAT). The BAT ecosystem rewards users for viewing ads, funds advertisers, and helps make the user attention market more transparent and efficient.
