Empowered consumers as data providers in the user-centric personal information ecosystem

Abstract

The worldwide adoption of new user-centric data protection legislation (as exemplified by the EU's GDPR) and the emergence of the new user-centric personal information ecosystem are going to radically change the power relationship between consumers and firms that collect and use personal information. In this new scenario, in which the consumers' control over personal information is strengthened, firms should revise the interaction strategies which they use with empowered and increasingly privacy-aware consumers in order to obtain (and maintain in time) said consumers' explicit consent to the processing of personal information. This conceptual study argues that a strategy which considers consumers as data providers, involves them as coproducers in the value-producing processes that utilise personal information, and empowers them through an iterative, dynamic and dialogic interplay, represents a positive and proactive interaction strategy that firms can implement in the emerging ecosystem.