The Web lacks the capability to define the packages it transports in a way that humans and machines can both understand. We are augmenting the Web standards with a semantic description of contents, value, pricing, terms and conditions and other parameters any dataset can have within a real-world context. This harmonises the data online and enables the sharing of data on the internet with the same mechanics and principles with which we run our real economy.

To be able to deliver the data products from the data source to the application in order to benefit end users, we need to have agreed ways for how different providers’ APIs communicate in the data economy. This is why the IHAN community is focusing on proposing new protocols for data productisation that define the procedures for how technical components interact with each other. This will also give birth to future data marketplaces, data exchanges, data sharing networks and global data markets.

The global economy and societies are built on legislation, regulation, standards, ethics and traditions. These rights and conventions must be understood by machines as well. Digital trust standards enable fair, secure, transparent and sustainable markets for data. The long legacy of digital society development, financial technology and emerging digital trust technologies provides the basis for defining the standards needed to control and validate the data being exchanged on the open data markets.

It has been estimated that 99% of the data online still lacks structure and real-world semantics that machines could understand and use. This prevents the data providers and consumers from finding each other and means that data remains stuck in silos. The data economy must be linked directly to the real economy and to real-world identities and roles. We are creating the semantic standards for digital identities and roles that serve as a basis for discovering data products in the data economy.