What is MERCURY? | Internet of People

the internet was designed to connect
people directly and for a while it did but today’s internet works in very
differently even though we seem to be more connected than ever our phones and
computers are locked away behind Internet service providers home routers
and countless servers connections can only be made on the whims of a handful
of companies getting through these barriers comes with a cost either in
money or by giving up your personal data and while it’s only fair that service
providers should be compensated these gatekeeper companies have too much power
with no real competition they can charge what they like this often comes in the
form of control over your personal data hidden in endless terms and conditions
or unclear privacy settings they use this power to store information about
you and your friends and family and sell it to other companies even worse they
control what content you can access and who can talk and do business with either
directly or as a result of government pressure it’s hard to believe but there
are enormous parts of the internet most people can’t access including this site
the problem here is centralization huge companies are gathering enormous amounts
of personal information and storing it all together this makes them a prime
target for hackers and makes life easy for the censors who only have to apply
pressure in one place to get content or even people or ideas blocked and once
the data is centralized it’s hard to fix there are huge barriers to leaving a
social media network or online service you can’t just transfer your details to
another platform you have to shut down your account and start again but of
course the companies get to keep all your data it’s a total mess at internet
of people we’re returning the Internet to its early vision of decentralized
nodes providing direct connections between people our mercury protocol
bypasses all the unnecessary middlemen and returns control of your personal
data to where it belongs with you mercury takes a common-sense
approach to data privacy and security everything is managed around profiles
which contain personal data you’re happy to share with the wider world because we
know life can be complicated you can have as many profiles as you want
perhaps you want one for friends one for family one for dating and one for work
these profiles are all cryptographically linked so they’re easy to switch between
but no one else will know these profiles are linked unless you share that
information when you want to use an app or service you select a profile to use
and then select which parts of that profile you want to share no one gets
more information about you than they need shared data is stored in a
decentralized way to prevent censorship and minimize the incentives and
consequences for hacking in fact wherever possible your data never even
leaves your device and because all your data is managed via profiles it’s simple
to revoke access to your data or to switch to a new service or social media
platform data privacy doesn’t mean abandoning social media and all the
amazing services today’s internet provides we just need a different
approach one which properly values people and their data mercury provides a
framework for developers to build their own decentralized apps this whole new
Internet of dApps will connect people directly and provide the same great
services all while respecting users privacy and personal information with
mercury we’re rebuilding the internet how it was supposed to be you

Written by Michelle Gutierrez

20 comments