Understanding user data exchange (UDEX)
Photo, Rachel Adams
UDEX.org . . .
One hundred years ago, for someone to really know you, they had to see you and touch you, and look in your eyes.
The saw you at the town square, the meeting house, in church, in school, at work.
Today, elements of your identity are strewn across the digital ecosystem.
And you don’t know who knows you, your habits or your interests.
In no way is that all bad. But it is a new world, this Attention Age, where products and services are provided to you for free because marketers want to know about you and what they can sell to you — via advertising or other services that are sometimes intrusive . . . sometimes helpful, playful, charming and collaborative.
UDEX.ORG is a place at the intersection of the cross currents of identity and privacy on the web. It is an initiative of the Information Trust Exchange Governing Association.
As one project, ITEGA is encouraging the bulding of a service that will allow you — the public — to share information about your interests, and receive information and messages with the confidence that your personal information — your name, your address, your phone number, maybe even your email address — are not being shared anywhere you don’t know about. ITEGA does not endorse any particular approach to this challenge and is open to information about alternatives to the ideas proposed in the links below.
RELATED LINKS:
- Customer proflle network — specification
- A UDEX prototype — Q-and-A
- A functional specification for user-data sharing developed for ITEGA
- A directory of related resources
- ITEGA project FAQ (2017)
If you’d like to help, please email wpdensmore@itega.org or call 617-448-6600.
Bill Densmore
Executive Director
Information Trust Exchange Governing Association
Williamstown, Mass. USA