Navigating the Data Trading Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Survey
Yi Yu, Jingru Yu, Xuhong Wang, Juanjuan Li, Yilun Lin, Conghui He, Yanqing Yang, Yu Qiao, Li Li, Fei-Yue Wang
TL;DR
This survey identifies Right Ambiguity in data rights as the fundamental barrier to a mature data trading market, yielding the 3C problems: Compliance Challenges, Collateral Consequences, and Costly Transactions. It traces the field from isolated technical advances to integrated solutions that blend institutional, technical, and economic mechanisms, and it introduces data usufruct as a systemic framing to separate ownership from usable rights. The authors present a formal Integrated Markov Decision Process ($ ext{IMDP}$) based approach to model trading dynamics, and propose quantitative metrics—$oldsymbol{ ext{Φ}}_P$, $oldsymbol{ ext{Φ}}_R$, $oldsymbol{ ext{Φ}}_S$, and $oldsymbol{ ext{Φ}}$—to evaluate 3C impacts. The work emphasizes interdisciplinary theory, computable usufruct tools, and platform development as essential to enable scalable, privacy-protecting, and value-driven data markets with practical policy and industry implications.
Abstract
Data has been increasingly recognized as a critical factor in the future economy. However, constructing an efficient data trading market faces challenges such as privacy breaches, data monopolies, and misuse. Despite numerous studies proposing algorithms to protect privacy and methods for pricing data, a comprehensive understanding of these issues and systemic solutions remain elusive. This paper provides an extensive review and evaluation of data trading research, aiming to identify existing problems, research gaps, and propose potential solutions. We categorize the challenges into three main areas: Compliance Challenges, Collateral Consequences, and Costly Transactions (the "3C problems"), all stemming from ambiguity in data rights. Through a quantitative analysis of the literature, we observe a paradigm shift from isolated solutions to integrated approaches. Addressing the unresolved issue of right ambiguity, we introduce the novel concept of "data usufruct," which allows individuals to use and benefit from data they do not own. This concept helps reframe data as a more conventional factor of production and aligns it with established economic theories, paving the way for a comprehensive framework of research theories, technical tools, and platforms. We hope this survey provides valuable insights and guidance for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, thereby contributing to digital economy advancements.