Revisiting Online Data Markets in 2022

Abstract

Well-functioning data markets match sellers with buyers to allocate data effectively. Although most of today's data markets fall short of this ideal, there is a renewed interest in online data marketplaces that may fulfill the promise of data markets. In this paper, we survey participants of some of the most common data marketplaces to understand the platforms' upsides and downsides. We find that buyers and sellers spend the majority of their time and effort in price negotiations. Although the markets work as an effective storefront that lets buyers find useful data fast, the high transaction costs required to negotiate price and circumvent the information asymmetry that exists between buyers and sellers indicates that today's marketplaces are still far from offering an effective solution to data trading. We draw on the results of the interviews to present potential opportunities for improvement and future research.