From Data Leverage to Data Co-Ops: An Institutional Model for User Control over Information Access

01/25/2022

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by   Caleb Malchik, et al.

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Internet companies derive value from users by recording and influencing their behavior. Users can pressure companies to refrain from certain invasive and manipulative practices by selectively withdrawing their attention, an exercise of data leverage as formulated by Vincent et al. Ligett and Nissim's proposal for an institution representing the interests of users, the data co-op, offers a means of coordinating this action. We present one possible instantiation of the data co-op, including the Platform for Untrusted Resource Evaluation (PURE), a system for assigning labels provided by untrusted and semi-trusted parties to Internet resources. We also describe PURESearch, a client program that re-ranks search results according to labels provided by data co-ops and other sources.