Designing a Context-aware Decentralized Marketplace for Sensor Data

Abstract

In the past years there has been increasing awareness about the benefits of collecting and using more sensor data for businesses. This has led firms to look for data outside of their boundaries and use some data commercialization mechanisms such as data brokers, and open or privately-owned data marketplace. However, these exchanges solutions are controlled by companies which have a commercial interest that differs from users, leading to lack of transparency and lack of protection of data, loss of data ownership by the provider and no guarantee of fair pricing. These centralized data exchanges call into question the willingness of both data providers and data users to share data. As an alternative, blockchain technology can be used to reduce the control and interference of any firm, leading to a more peer-to-peer and transparent data marketplace. To improve coordination between stakeholders and to enhance a more automated marketplace, the system should be context-aware. The main contribution of this thesis is a proposition of blockchain-based components integrated within a context-aware decentralized data marketplace. Other parts of the system are highlighted, as they need to be subject to more research in order to achieve a fully functional and complete system. Finally, guidelines are suggested for generalization to other types of data and ecosystems.