Data trading based on seller preferences within blockchain smart contract

Abstract

Online data trading has not focused on the necessary control of data selling by the data seller preferences (DSP) using blockchain technology. This research aims to explore the DSP using smart contract over blockchain within the domain of online data trading. Data trading has been carried out for several decades, but cutting-edge technologies and cloud services have grown dramatically worldwide. Industries are gaining benefits from accessing the data that enabled them to perform mission-critical tasks by performing data analysis on the massively available data and getting a higher return on investment (ROI). This research aims to make online data trading possible only if the buyer can satisfy the conditions predefined by the seller. For example, DSP can restrict the data purchase if the participating buyer is doing business from a specific geographic location, or it can further restrict a particular type and size of business. So, data trading will be controlled by smart contract validation based on DSP hence the novel DSP artefact has been achieved and evaluated via a personal blockchain Ganache, which is always set to automatics mining. Even though the DSP Dapp artefact has been explored with a limited scope of seller preferences and data volume, future researchers may evolve the DSP Dapp artefact framework to achieve complex seller preferences such as ethical selling (e.g., green credentials). The smart contract serves as an automated contract depending on DSP, between seller and buyer, without the involvement of any broker or third party. After the first chapter's introduction has set up the context for chapter two to review the literature, present the research question, and set the aims and objectives. Chapter three selected the DSR methodology for this research and analysed the requirements to set the building block for chapters four and five. Chapters four and five fulfilled objective two by designing and developing the DSP artefact using a smart contract to control data trading. Chapter 6 validated the DSP trading system to confirm the novelty of this research, and finally, chapter 7 summarised the contribution and future research. The research proposes a new approach to online data trading that controls the data selling depending on DSP within smart contract over blockchain and opens new doors for the researchers for future work in this area.