Defamation-Free Networks through User-Centered Data Control

Existing online social networks hardly care about users' privacy rights. In particular, they do not permit users to keep control over their data. By their data, we denote data that refers to the respective user as an identifiable object within (textual, audio, image or video) media. The well-known concept of usage control employs a usage rights' perspective (e.g. DRM), but it does not explicitly deal with privacy. In this paper, we instead propose the concept of data control, which exactly focusses on privacy rights and therefore employs a control rights' perspective. Based on data control, we propose a defamation-free network (DEN) in which control rights are riot only manifest and visible, but can also be exercised. We examine the main usage scenarios of such a network, and discuss the possible approaches for implementing it. Finally, we sketch a solution with an underlying P2P architecture and highlight the basic technological challenges and requirements.