Web 3.0- Privacy, Ethics and Other Moral Aspects
This article was published as a part of the Data Science Blogathon.
Introduction
The third generation of the internet, the semantic web, and the decentralized internet all refer to the same thing. Web 3.0 links data or objects with highly organized semantic relationships instead of linking information or publications for people and computers to read as it now does. We must explain how it varies from where we are currently by going back in time. Web 3.0 takes away most of the power from large corporations and governments and makes it decentralized, but it also takes away many safety and regulations.
Web 3.0 offers several privacy improvements, but eliminating centralized third parties is the most significant. Instead of depending on businesses like Facebook to mediate the trade, users will communicate directly. People won’t have to be concerned about a third party overhearing their private chats in this manner.
Source: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/ethics-and-the-internet/
This is made feasible by a few crucial technologies. Users are rewarded for their engagement through incentive systems, which enable social networks to function without a central authority. Blockchains don’t belong to any one party and provide decentralized communication.
Why is Data Privacy Important?
Data privacy often refers to how sensitive information and data are handled. Social security numbers, medical information, and financial details like bank account and credit card numbers might all be included in this information.
Data privacy in a company setting extends beyond the data of clients and workers. The information that enables the business to function is likewise concerned with data privacy. This can involve confidential research, development knowledge, or financial data.
Data privacy has always been crucial. It’s the reason why individuals rent safety deposit boxes from their banks and lock up their file cabinets. Data privacy is becoming increasingly crucial as more of our data is digitized, and we share more information online. A government data hack may also jeopardize the security of entire nations. And if it happens within your business, it may give rivals access to your confidential information.
Privacy with Web 3.0
Web 3.0 has new functionality. Instead of using big central units, it disperses information over safe, decentralized data pools. In this manner, it is less probable that a compromise at one business or website would severely affect user privacy.
Additionally, Web 3.0 would make hacking much more challenging. Hackers need to access at least 51% of the machines on the network to compromise blockchain operations since they are dispersed across a large area.
Source: https://www.navex.com/blog/article/data-privacy-frameworks/
Web 3.0 will continue to acknowledge that the idea of online privacy does not accurately reflect the state of affairs. But it will do it in a way that gives consumers back power and not only acknowledges but also considers the consequences of previous internet data abuses. Overall, this is probably going to boost both advertising and customer pleasure. While companies can better develop connections with their target markets and get permission, first-party data, consumers experience a sense of respect and humanization. Web 3.0’s digital advertising market will undoubtedly be one to watch.
Why is Privacy important now?
It is predicted that by 2025, there will be more than 75 billion devices online. The connective fiber that unites us extends beyond social networks, including nodes on your cell phones and desktop computers. This tissue web extends to smart TVs, refrigerators, delivery packages, and pretty much every gadget with a chip. Because the perimeter of devices is so dispersed, the network is simply decentralized. Each gadget can store, analyze, or transmit data on individuals. While IoT expands reach and redefines convenience for all users, it also creates new opportunities for data breaches. Users and customers trust brands and platforms that safeguard their data rights and dignity.
The present centralized data and asset protection techniques at the corporate level will no longer suffice. Protection, privacy, and security leaders will lose this cat-and-mouse game if devices are spread and centralized. We must adjust our attitude and approaches away from merely safeguarding data and assets and protecting people. Putting humans at the heart of data protection operations is a solution to the inevitable development of IoT. Three emergent privacy-preserving trends are riding the IoT waves.
Will there be an improvement in Privacy?
Decentralization makes it harder to identify the controller and processor of personally identifiable information (PII) under privacy regulations. Web 3.0’s lack of centralized control and data access may make it even more challenging to regulate cybercrime, such as online harassment, hate speech, and child abuse photos. Furthermore, if the information is housed worldwide, regulatory issues regarding which country’s laws apply to a certain website may arise.
There is no question that we must be prepared for change. A decentralized network will change the way we organize information on the internet, and blockchain technology has the capacity to restructure organizations. As Web 2.0 transitions to Web 3.0, whole businesses may be altered. To stay up with the developing landscape, regulators, corporations, and even consumers must begin reconsidering how we approach cybersecurity and privacy problems through the perspective of Web 3.0.
Web 3.0 and Society
The diffusion of responsibility was one of the main aims of the creation of Bitcoin. A decentralized network that could endure one or two wars was one of the early ambitions of the internet. Web3 agrees with this viewpoint and maintains that there shouldn’t be a single entity acting as the transaction’s gatekeeper. Truth is something that naturally comes from a sincere consensus rather than something that is prescribed from above.
This idea of decentralized and shared control applies to many facets of commerce and everyday life. While some people might think that worrying about power and control over some of the most unimportant aspects of the internet is overkill. But a cursory review of history reveals that there are several valid reasons for the world to be wary of concentrated power. Web3 desires to defend us from each of them.
It is up to us, the people, how we can accept Web 3.0 in our day-to-day lives.
Web 3.0 and Ethics
Web 3.0 technologies can also assist us in closing the gap between online privacy and transparency, allowing society to reap the collective benefits of big data, including in critical areas such as national security, fighting financial crime, and curing disease while protecting privacy and rights of honest individuals. Individuals will increasingly be able to monetize their private data on a decentralized, safe Web rather than naively turning over the value of their personal information to third-party platforms, as is the case now.
- Public relations practitioners working in the web3 ecosystem must pay particular attention to the challenges associated with the ecosystem to serve as a guide to the builders and users and make the process easier for all parties.
- With the advent of Web3, you may either be a techno-optimist or a techno-pessimist. Whatever side you take, we are all confronted with the task of determining what is right and wrong.
- Web3 offers a decentralized, community-governed internet powered by tokens and entirely owned by users and creators, with no regulatory agency monitoring their activity.
- Web3’s lack of control creates concerns and ethical difficulties like data and privacy leakage, ICO frauds, copyright infringement using NFTs, and outright theft. This openness allows unscrupulous actors to wreak havoc on both builders and users.
- More ethical issues about Web3 include, among other things, racial prejudice against robots, cybersecurity hazards, and unemployment owing to job loss to machines.
- The continuation of web3 will also result in an increase in the tonnes of electronic garbage, which will harm the environment.
Conclusion
While the Internet has certainly transformed how we interact, it can also be a terrifying and insecure environment. As Web 3.0 becomes a reality, our online lives will become more secure, safe, and maybe even profitable. Progress is a shift in viewpoint, and such a shift would call into question prior paradigms that we are presumably aware of.
- Decentralization makes it difficult to differentiate between the by and by identifiable data (PII) regulator and the PII processor regarding security regulation.
- Web 3.0 may make it substantially more difficult to regulate crimes, including online incitement, contempt speech, and youthful abuse of images, because of its lack of central supervision and access to data.
- Blockchain technology is key to Web 3.0, which modernizes the Internet by focusing on core principles such as decentralization, trust, reliability, and security.
- Web 3.0 promises a decentralized identity paradigm in which people retain control over their data.
Web 3.0 will bring about a lot of changes. It falls upon us to utilize them properly and fully use them.
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Prateek is a final year engineering student from Institute of Engineering and Management, Kolkata. He likes to code, study about analytics and Data Science and watch Science Fiction movies. His favourite Sci-Fi franchise is Star Wars. He is also an active Kaggler and part of many student communities in College.
