The case of the “Big Data” revolution

Jan Worst
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Jan Worst: Maastricht School of Management

No 2014/34, Working Papers from Maastricht School of Management

Abstract: In 2008 president Obama decided for an “open data” policy on governments’ data resources and opened since 2009 10th of thousands of data. The EU commission followed in 2009 with the “Open Forum” initiative [www.openforumeurope.eu]. Although the European Union opts for a policy to open up data resources member states made the restriction to do it in a structured form, until now the exposure is poor and traditional. The EU policy enclosing restrictions to “open” data, puts aside the neutrality (free entrance for all) of the Internet. The main difference [Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier, 2013] between control of data (according to its source: single data or metadata) by governments and the private sectors is: “Governments can force civilians and the private sector to submit and provide data”. H.V. Jagadish et al. 1 [2012] mention “Big Data” in the previous context as an overall system that focuses on data integration to make use of scale, bridge timelessness, complexity and privacy problems, which is currently influenced and controlled by Google, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox, Internet Explorer and similar competitive browsers. How do they collaborate with governments and the private sector? Collusive tacitly or more explicit? At present we have entered the era of the web 4.0. Van Rijmenam [2013] describes the development of the intelligent web in four era’s: (1) web 1.0 or the era of e-mail 1990 – 2000, (2) web 2.0 or the social web era 2000 – 2010, (3) web 3.0 or the semantic web era 2010 – 2020, and (4) web 4.0 or the intelligent web era 2020 and beyond. The web 4.0 or the intelligent web stands for reasoning, which includes the use of structured and unstructured data and has to meet criteria of validity, because “open” data, statistics, and analytics are fundamental and require a transparent environment, certification, and refutability. That’s what determines the value of Google, Twitter, Facebook, and their competitors. They are controlled by a new aristocracy of data possessors (fiefs, the feud), which in line with Adam Smith [The Wealth of Nations, 1776] represent a territory free from interference by the state. Who benefit the most? The governments, the private sector, or the civilians?

Keywords: “Open Data”; “Big Data”; data and metadata; new aristocracy; web 4.0; collaboration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2014-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict
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