{"id":19660,"date":"2017-10-06T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=19660"},"modified":"2019-11-15T06:44:41","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T11:44:41","slug":"data-dollar-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/data-dollar-store\/19660\/","title":{"rendered":"Have you ever considered data as currency?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The amount of personal data we own grows rapidly every minute: messages and emails in our mailboxes, pictures on our smartphones, posts in social networks, and so on\u2026 Have you ever tried to estimate the actual amount of it? And how much could all this data cost? Well, probably, before answering that question, you have to first ask yourself another one: Would you be willing to give away your data in exchange for some goods? That\u2019s what we tried to figure out \u2013 and we\u2019ve opened a shop in London for that.<\/p>\n

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The store that accepted no money<\/h2>\n

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We at Kaspersky Lab decided to find out the answers to those questions \u2013 not just for us, but for other people as well. That\u2019s why we opened the Data Dollar Store<\/a> \u2013 the first and only pop-up shop where one could pay for goods with their data and only data. We\u2019ve called that currency \u201cData Dollars\u201d. For 2 days, September the 6th<\/sup> and the 7th<\/sup>, we were open in London\u2019s bustling creative hub in Shoreditch to sell exclusive t-shirts, mugs and prints specially designed by famous London street artist Ben Eine.<\/p>\n

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A hard decision<\/h3>\n

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Wouldn\u2019t you want to get some designer swag without giving away any real money for it?! Sure! That\u2019s what made some customers at the store pretty excited at first. But would you change your mind if you found out that you would have to give away several personal WhatsApp conversations or pictures that would be displayed on a screen to everybody passing by the store for two days? Have some doubts already? However, that\u2019s some exclusive swag for no real money\u2026 That was a tough choice not everyone could make easily.<\/p>\n

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What the real price is<\/h3>\n

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Actually, that\u2019s the choice we all are making quite frequently, but we just don\u2019t notice that. We subscribe to services that collect our data, process it and sell it, giving us something like a social network platform or movies on demand in exchange. Most of the time we don\u2019t even read those terms of agreement and jump right into sharing our private data with everyone. With the Data Dollar Store we just wanted to raise awareness of it by making it\u2026 more vivid.<\/p>\n