The new economic good: Your own personal data. An integrative analysis of the Dark Web

Abstract

Do you remember the times when the copyright or a patent had no economic value? Neither do I, because this happened more than 300 years ago when the printing activity took place completely free. It was the eighteenth century, when France, England, Germany and the United Kingdom realized that the author was pretty important for the state and the first regulations appeared. Exactly like the intellectual property, in the new era of technology, dynamic change and growing e-commerce, the data with personal character is the newest economic good. More and more studies and journals show that in the near future the personal information will also have an economic value since databases are so important for businesses, but also for other institutions like the police or even intelligence agencies. The current article is the first in a row of a complex research regarding the importance of the personal data in the current economy and its actual value in an organization. Further studies will be needed in order to conclude and create a model for measuring the value of personal data. This first step is a research and a detailed analysis of the current status-quo. The changes that appeared after the entry of the European directives regarding General Data Protection Regulation will be analyzed. Another significant section of the article is a close review of the personal data black market. In order to submit this aspect as clear and objective as possible, further research on the dark internet (Onion) was conducted and prices for clones of credit cards, Amazon or PayPal accounts and cloned personal documents were examined and charted.