Perhaps Steven Johnson really is on to something when he mentions the power of 10 in his book Where Good Ideas Come From.

“Web’s Hot New Commodity: Privacy” is a WSJ article written by Julia Angwin and Emily Steel.

I do recall my IT and the Law professor proposing data as a currency and the high value of it in today’s Internet and Cookie driven world. Data is for Advertisers and Corporations, what Privacy is for Consumers and Savvy End-Users. A mutually-beneficial relationship is bubbling and proper cultivation is key.

“As people are becoming more aware of the value of their data, some are seeking to protect it, and sometimes sell it. In January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, executives and academics gathered to discuss how to turn personal data into an ‘asset class’ by giving people the right to manage and sell it on their own behalf.”

“‘We are trying to shift the focus from purely privacy to what we call property rights,’ says Michele Luzi, a director at consulting firm Bain & Co. who led the Davos discussion.”

Ah, ha! And so data will become an individuals virtual property, is that it? The market for such an idea does certainly exist and that more transparent companies become about the type of information they seek from users and what the data is being used for, the more willing users will become to sharing their data in an accurate and coherent matter. Heck, if giving selectively giving my data will ‘Allow’ (pun intended) me to reap some monetary benefits be it in the form of free and neat gadgets or cash, I’m up for it. Meet ‘ALLOW Ltd.’!

“[ALLOW Ltd]…is just one of nearly a dozen start-ups hoping to profit from the nascent privacy market.” Allow is a London-based start-up with a database of over 1,000 members willing to share accurate data of themselves. ALLOW launched in December 2010. In the sites ‘Who’s behind ALLOW’ you’ll find: “ALLOW is the ambitious vision of Justin Basini and Howard Huntley, the founders of ALLOW.” Justin Basini is co-founder and CEO @ ALLOW. Basini has substantial padding in marketing and an unanticipated, but pleasingly surprising, background in biochemistry. Howard Huntley is co-founder and CFO @ ALLOW. Huntley encompasses, from what I gather, the software development portion of the team - with the added bonus of management experience, which simply means he is tech and people literate.

“‘Entrepreneurs smell opportunity,’ says Satya Patel, venture capitalist at Battery Ventures, which led a group of investors that poured $8 million in June into a start-up called SafetyWeb, which helps parents monitor their children’s activities on social-networking sites and is rolling out a new privacy-protection service for adults, myID.com.” I like the idea of allowing parents to monitor their children’s activity online, if they block inappropriate T.V channels, the same should be done with Internet content. I even like the idea behind myID.com.

My concern is that simply making the tools available is not enough, it is critical that parents understand why becoming social-networking literate is important and why they should care enough to moderate their children’s online activities. The same applies to adults and their privacy-protection, just because you want web-based embedded privacy doesn’t mean you understand how to ensure you privacy is in fact being protected. Developing the technology might be the easier portion of the task, it’s getting others (the everyday casual end-user) to understand the importance behind the technology and how to use it.

People have been given roughly 10 years to adapt to the Internet Age and social media has brought privacy-protection and data-as-a-currency to the forefront. It is time web 2.0 develop into its next iteration and the mutually-beneficial relationship be as transparent (on both ends) as possible.

Everyone enjoys a good deal.