The Solution to Facebook’s Privacy Woes is a New Technology Created by Stanford University Students Hypernet Follow Apr 18, 2018 · 2 min read

Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about data privacy this week by congress.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, and many other Silicon Valley tech giants have recently come under fire for their handling of your personal data—and rightfully so. Their use of your information seems to have been guided by a toxic combination of abuse, greed, and negligence.

However, in these companies’ defense, their entire business model revolves around the use of your data for advertising purposes. If they didn’t do this, they would be charging you for their services … and could you imagine paying $9.99 a month to use Facebook? This is clearly a non-starter.

But what if data collection and handling were carried out in a radically different way? What if you had full control and ownership of your personal data, but Facebook could use this data without ever having it? In this ideal scenario, Facebook could maintain free service by continuing to target you with tailored ads without actually accessing your personal information. It would be a win-win.

Hypernet is poised to change the future of data privacy and analytics by enabling “on-device computation.” This would allow companies to learn from your personal data without ever controlling or owning it.

With Hypernet, YOU control YOUR data on YOUR device.

That’s because Hypernet technology turns the Facebook model on its head. In order to make money through targeted ads, Facebook compiles users’ personal data. AI software, coupled with this user data, determines which people are shown which ads on the Facebook platform.

Hypernet instead provides a decentralized environment for the training of similar AI software. The software learns, in a general sense, which ads fit which people, without ever acquiring any one user’s personal data.

But how does the software know whether to show me an ad if it doesn’t know anything about me?

With Hypernet, your computer acts as gatekeeper. The program knocks on your computer’s door and declares, “We have this ad with these specifications. Is it relevant to you?” Your computer then accepts or denies the ad, based on your data, but that data is never seen by Facebook, Google, Amazon, or any other ad platforms.

With Hypernet you control your data, and it never leaves your device.

Join the conversation about evolving data privacy issues and the future of distributed networks in Hypernet’s Telegram Community. See you there!