Moneyspinner?

New companies are emerging, claiming they can finally give us the chance to seize back some ownership of our personal information. By cutting out the middleman and offering more transparency – and a chance to profit – they say they want to give users the means to monitor how their own data is used in a way that tech giants do not.

I like the idea of selling my own data. If the promises are true, I will be able to control who uses it (and how). Plus, I’d be earning money from something that until now I’d been giving away for free. I decided to investigate: could my stats be a viable, untapped income?

I focus on companies that make it possible for me to earn money straight away. Many of the firms I found are just starting out, like Ocean Protocol, which launches to the public in early 2019 and will offer a “data exchange protocol to unlock data for artificial intelligence”. Another is Datacoup, which isn’t currently open to new users signing up. Permission.io will pay users in ASK tokens, the company’s own cryptocurrency, to watch advertisements. But at the moment there is no way to convert these ASK into non-crypto assets. Since it wasn’t possible to make money with this bunch yet, I decide to focus on three where I can.

Quiz master

One tried-and-true way of making money from your “data” is by filling out online surveys. Most of us take part in online quizzes for fun every now and then – why not answer questions about myself for money? One firm, CitizenMe, claims to offer “real-life value from your life online” by paying users to answer quizzes about themselves. I take a quiz called “Does your data have value?”. I’m hoping it does – that’s why I’m here.