GAFA Vs. Cryptos

GAFA — Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon — pretty much controls data on the internet. Google controls nearly ninety percent of search advertising, Appleis the world’s leading smartphone vendor, Facebook controls eighty percent of mobile social traffic, and Amazon accounts for seventy-five percent of e-book sales. Approximately 2.5 Quintillion bytes of data is created daily, growing data storage four times faster than world economy. This has contributed to a paradigm shift in economic power and values. Collectively, these companies racked in a net profit of over $25bn in Q1 of 2017 alone and their operations is beginning to blur the lines between traditional banking institutions and FinTech.

Drilling For Data

Data is created from surfing the internet, uploading and downloading files, shopping online, interacting on social networks, and syncing devices. This data has become a strategic asset that enables organization to maintain and acquire competitive edge in the market. It drives everything from planning to design, marketing, and analytics. By collecting more data, firms can improve their products, attract more users, and generate more profit. In turn, this generates more data and profit margins for these companies. However, this large scale monetization of personal data is yet to benefit the source of this data; the users.

Banking With GAFA

It’s undeniable that GAFA has made tremendous contributions to communication, socialization, and commerce, pioneering innovations in the way we talk, shop, and interact online. These innovations are beginning to stretch into other industries too with Google’s development of a self-driving car, and Amazon’s increasing forays into game and TV development. Lately, these forays are beginning to challenge one of the most fundamental human institution; banking.

Last year October, the Central Bank of Ireland recognized an unusual player among its roster of digital payment providers; Facebook Payments International Limited. The recognition granted Facebook license to provide basic financial services including electronic money transfers to all citizens in the EU. Google and Apple have also moved into this space with Google Pay and Apple Pay services, while Amazon now offers business loans. While a welcomed development, GAFA’s banking poses one problem for users; data manipulation. These companies are highly centralized and opaque.

A Question of Privacy

Users have no control over the usage of their private information and their privacy is constantly being invaded in exchange for free services. These thorny issue is now the center of legislative concerns across the globe. However, strict regulation of GAFA would be a Pyrrhic victory, deterring innovation on that could continue to make our lives easier online. This is what FinTech startup, ConnectJob, is set to address. At ConnectJob, privacy and safety of all users is our concern. By leveraging blockchain technology, ConnectJob is disintermediating the global labor market, allowing users to directly connect to each other and exchange values.

ConnectJob is a multi-platform application compatible with all Android and IOS devices. The software’s innovative geolocation feature allow users to connect with skilled jobbers in their area. These jobbers will tend to the user’s various chores and needs ranging from cleaning to driving, gardening, cooking, coaching and much more.

Users’ interaction on the platform is governed by lawyer-backed smart contracts. These smart contracts help users dictate mutually beneficial terms for all engagement and ensures that they are compensated according to the terms.

Privacy of all users is of paramount concern to ConnectJob. This is why the network will never register personal information on the blockchain and will ensure that users’ private key is inaccessible to third parties. ConnectJob will employ state-of-the-art cryptographic and proxy techniques to protect all information on the platform. However, ConnectJob records all reviews and recommendations on the blockchain to create an immutable reputation system for all users. The geolocation system developed by ConnectJob will allow users to track the jobber during their commute to the job site.

ConnectJob is also proud to announce its ongoing token pre-sale. The pre-sale aims to place its ERC20 token, the CJT, into the hands of early adopters and investors at 20%. This offer runs from 12/01/2017 to 02/11/2018. Tokens can be purchased using Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Dash(DASH), or in fiat (USD/EUR) at 2400 CJT per ETH.