OONA Mobile TV & Blockchain Digital Identity

Facebook has been getting the thumbs down of late, and while during the space of the last few years, it was subject to a number of warnings about its unacceptable policies on user data security, it continued on the same trajectory like an uncontrolled steam roller.

Mark Zuckerburg et al., hit an all-time low with the unfolding of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. According to a former contractor, this: “data analytics firm used personal information harvested from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without permission to build a system that could target US voters with personalised political advertisements based on their psychological profile”[1]. Moreover, “A former Facebook manager has warned that hundreds of millions of users are likely to have had their private information used by private companies in the same way”[1].

“There is a very dark side to the way internet titans capture, utilise & sell consumer data”

Users Need to Have Total Confidence in a Platform

Facebook's extreme abuse of its users' trust, together with the constant general online data breaches and hostile hacks on other platforms, as well as the continually increasing demand for vigorous digital identification verification protocols, are driving people to demand greater transparency and government enforced higher security levels. This is in order to ensure their personal information and identity is not abused in “a world where companies [such as Facebook] trade in the currency of personal data”[1].

According to Smithers Pira, the world market for personal identity credentials could hit close to $10 billion within four years. And “Asia represents more than 60% of the global market for personal ID” [2], so it is high on the target list. This is taken very seriously by the Indonesian government, as well as Christopher Hochart, the founder and CEO of the hugely popular interactive, Free Mobile TV Platform, OONA. Hochart, a leading digital strategist, went into partnership with Telkom Indonesia in 2017, in order to provide state-of-the-art and subscription-free ad-based and premium option Mobile TV to more than 185 million Indonesians. Always at the forefront of high tech developments, he is now exploring Blockchain in order to offer OONA users total anonymity.  

Rock Around the Clock

Hochart and his cutting-edge tech team work around the clock to make OONA the best of the best, and a platform that consumers can use for everything from:1.Watching up to 300 top national and international channels which provide the latest films and series, live sports, documentaries, educational programs, celebrity news, Fashion TV, cookery specials, and breaking news. To 2. Interacting with friends and family, sharing the programs and entertainment they love by using all kinds of editing tools and stickers. And 3. Telling the AI Siskabot Genie: what types of programs they like - so she can have them all ready for them. To 4. Receiving personalised ads that they are interested in, and can save money on. And 5. Enjoying tcoin (virtual currency) rewards just for watching content and ads, sharing with frineds and family, and interacting with Siskabot. The tcoins can be redeemed against branded goods and services, discounts, meals, great days out, free phone minutes and telcom products.

OONA has a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline, including new ventures with telcom companies in other parts of Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East, the US and Europe. This is in line with its mission statement: “To make life fun for billions of people by providing the best free Mobile TV.” And Blockchain could be another tier of excellence for the platform.

Enlightenment in the Face of Reality

Here in 2018, consumers are becoming more and more enlightened about the degree in which their personal information is being seized and used to make companies such as Facebook, tens of billions of dollars per annum. Governments around the world are finally looking into bringing out legislation, and the European Union is enforcing strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines on 25 May, 2018, in order to: “harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy”[3].

The Major Challenges With Personal Identity

These involve trust, control, and security. Unfortunately, at the present time, digital identities are subject to being abused by various operators. - And while it is abundantly clear that companies such as Google and FB have completely transformed the way that we all interact, work and go about our lives, thereby rewarding us with immeasurable benefits - there is also a very unsavory side.

Until recently, many people did not really consider the fact that Google, Facebook, and the other behemoths, only put out their free services in order to access the personal information of billions of users, which they ruthlessly monitize without due care. It is just a numbers game for them, and the numbers are good. - According to Statistica, in 2017, FB generated US 39.94 Billion in revenue from advertising alone [4].

How Can Blockchain Help the Current Personal Data Dilemma?

Firstly, in regard to security, decentralized tech can potentially deliver encrypted, secure digital ID hubs that interact with consumers' information while preserving user control, security and privacy. And secondly, on the issue of control, Distributed Ledger Technology and Blockchain protocols and standards can deliver DIDs (self-sovereign decentralized identifications), which are solely under the users' control, and totally separate from all centralised authorities. So in a nutshell, Blockchains are designed to generate security, transparency, and user control - thereby offering a practical workable solution to the serious dilemmas of digital identity.

Progress is Ongoing

At the present time, the World Wide Web Consortium and the Digital Identity Foundation are collaborating on the standardisation of users' digital identities along with the related ecosystem. This standard will facilitate worldwide use and access, as well as strict user control over verification data. Moreover, this will drive particular designs of services and apps, such as the OONA Mobile TV app, which offers so much more then OTT, as it is engineered with the user in mind, and not the other way around.

While it has to be said that there is still some way to go to make Blockchain the perfect fit for TV platforms such as OONA, the fact that everyday tech innovators are striving for the best possible structures. Further, app entrepreneurs such as Christopher Hochart, who are fully engaged in delivering full transparency and the protection of user's personal data, give the world at large cause for hope after the recent FB volcanic eruptions of greed and betrayal. We have to rest assured that there are always alternatives...

References

[1]. Greenfield, Patrick (2018). The Guardian. “The Cambridge Analytica files: the story so far.”https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/26/the-cambridge-analytica-files-the-story-so-far Accessed 24 Apr. 2018.

[2]. Martin, Zack (2016). “Report: Personal identity market worth $9.7B by 2021.” https://www.secureidnews.com/news-item/report-personal-identity-market-worth-9-7b-by-2021/

Accessed 24 Apr. 2018.

[3]. EUGDPR (2018). https://www.eugdpr.org/ Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.

[4]. Statistica (2018). “Facebook's advertising revenue worldwide from 2009 to 2017 (in million U.S. dollars).”https://www.statista.com/statistics/271258/facebooks-advertising-revenue-worldwide/ Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.