Money Makers: Invisibly

There’s a new passive income stream you should know about - making money from your personal data. Here’s why this is important.

1. Currently, big tech and the advertising industry profit handsomely from your data for targeted advertising purposes, yet you don’t see a penny of compensation from it. There are a host of companies now including Invisibly that are actively working to change this, and to change the advertising industry in general, to a 100% consumer-consented and consumer owned data model.
2. Changing an entire industry to a consumer-consented model takes participation, and just by signing up with Invisibly and getting paid for licensing your data, you can be part of the solution to this problem. Yes, just by adding a source of passive income to your life you can do some good in the world.
3. Start small now, get big returns later. Invisibly hopes within the next 2 years to enable you to earn approximately $1000 a year for your data. Currently you’ll get a few bucks a month, but soon, that could be approx $100 in passive income, and this is just from Invisibly. When you add in the other platforms now starting similar models for licensing personal data, you could earn some real passive income, with very little effort. What could a couple hundred more dollars a month do for your life?

“We’re making it super simple to share and license your data with Invisibly and make money from it, and by doing this, you’re also helping change the way data is obtained to a 100% consumer-consented data model.” says Dr. Don Vaughn, Ph.D., Head of product at Invisibly.

I had a chance to interview Dr. Don Vaughn, Ph.D. to learn more.

Why are more consumers opting out of data collection?
How about a different perspective: Why would anyone opt in to data collection, and give their data away for free? Our data is valuable and we should be compensated when anyone else uses it.

How does data collection benefit both consumers and companies?
Personal data allows advertisers to show relevant ads to the right people. So rather than having to show diapers ads to every single American, having data on whether someone has children allows advertisers to only show those ads to a few million new parents. That precision saves advertisers money and means consumers get more relevant ads. But who gets to keep the money which that data saved? And who’s in control of creating and managing that data?

The problem is that right now, Facebook and sketchy data collectors track people online to figure out what they’re interested in, pocket all the data profits, and give people virtually zero control over it. Invisibly puts people in control: people are in control of what data they do or do not want to share. If they choose to license out their data, they receive a data dividend. Invisibly simply acts as their personal data agent to find those licensing opportunities.

What does a "consumer-consented data model" mean?
A consumer-consented data model means that people have the ability to give active consent to any use of their data. Active consent is affirmative, informed, conscious, voluntary, unencumbered and ongoing agreement to participate. Silence is not active consent. Assumed consent is not active either.