Meet Aziz Ergashev, the founder of Asora, the ad-blocking startup that uses blockchain technology to “make you a platform for your own data”.
Aziz Ergashev
In light of recent data breach scandals such as that of Cambridge Analytica, which saw Mark Zuckerberg subjected to a two-day grilling trial for the misuse of billions of users’ data, Ergashev and his team decided it was time people started having the opportunity to protect their own data online.
In a recent press conference this Wednesday 30th May, Ergashev spoke of the frustration of many internet users, especially younger generations, at the outdated nature of the same technology still being used that was invented 20 years ago.
Today’s internet is awash with ads, which track your behaviour whilst you browse the internet, gaining access to more information than the average user would ever imagine. At points, there could be up to 50 different websites tracking your consumer behaviour at any given point, Ergashev explained.
There are already many ad-blockers available online that all work on the basis that when a user decides to block an ad, all of their data is centralised, which can cause serious problems if the master key is cracked and there is a data breach.
What, then, is different about Asora?
Thanks to its use of blockchain technology, every note has a different master key, making data breaches significantly more difficult. As a result, in theory, each user will be in charge of their own data through their own blockchain.
For this reason, founder Ergashev believes blockchain to be “the solution for decentralising centralised architectures.”
Asora aims to market their technology to everyone who uses the internet, taking a stand against the concept of ‘surveillance economy’, whereby giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon monetise their users’ data. These sites take advantage of the average user, who believes usage to be free, but in reality the value users generate for the sites is much higher than what they themselves are getting out of it, explained Ergashev.
“We want to make those databases stale by blocking every single beacon,” he said.
During the web conference, Ergashev outlined that the ad-blocking industry is growing at a rate of 50% per year, with 20% of internet users aged 16 to 34 already using the service without even realising it.
By simply installing Asora as an extension on your internet browser, the work will be done for you, and users will not even have to think about blocking ads.
As a company, Asora urges its customers to stand up to the large conglomerates committing privacy breaches every time they track a user’s data. Perhaps the recently-launched startup could be the disruption to an industry that many people have resigned themselves to be victims of, and users might have the opportunity to restore their faith in the internet.