What if websites, apps and AI agents came to your data—rather than forcing you to hand it over to them?

For 25 years we’ve accepted a one-way model: visit a site, sign up, give away data, live inside their silo. DataPal argues that this is no longer the only way—or the best way. A new paradigm is emerging where individuals hold their own data, control who accesses it, and benefit from richer, safer and more seamless digital experiences. Using simple examples like Travel Log, we show how interoperable, user-controlled data unlocks better apps, lower compliance burdens and entirely new possibilities.

This shift is coming fast—here’s why it matters.

CRM, or Customer Relationship Management emerged as a software solution and business definition when new technical capabilities emerged. The new possibility that emerged (in 1995 or so) was that three main business functions (marketing, selling and customer service) could be underpinned by a single database; the mythical ‘single view of the customer’.

MyTerms must also be seen as a mechanism through which our kids can grow up with the massive benefits that digital technology and connectivity WITHOUT the shockingly bad bits that they also have now.

Buying and Selling Homes – a DataPal Use Case! We wanted to explore how a new approach to the provision and flow of information, using the DataPal principles and platform, can addresses the challenges which characterise a very frustrating and opaque process for many stakeholders.

Building Trust Through Action: How AI Shopping Agents Bring DataPal's Vision to Life. From theory to transaction: our journey building a customer-side AI agent that puts individuals in control of their shopping experience.

So I’m going into a week of intense work on MyTerms/ IEEE7012 - at VRM Day, Internet Identity Workshop and the Agentic Protocol Workshop. All at The Computer History Museum in Mountain View; as ever an appropriate place for this kind of work. And then multiple working sessions, dinners and drinks around those.

The new thinking on the matter is that we can and should now clearly articulate the benefits that people can access when their data is more accessible to them or their delegates - because it is portable, i.e. accessible to them in a useful format.

People should have their own digital record of the education and their employment that they control and which works on their behalf - for life.

My Personal Agents and how they will radically improve CRM and change Customer Experience (CX).

The way we as individuals interact with companies (our "suppliers") is on the brink of a major change, driven by the rise of personal agents. These AI-powered "customer-side agents" are set to revolutionize CRM by shifting control from companies to individuals.

I’m going to start with MyTerms and work inwards because that is the protective outer layer/ wrapper which shields and empowers the other components - and thus the individual human behind them. Firstly - what do we mean by ‘MyTerms’?

The relationship between companies and their customers has always been a delicate dance, but in the digital age, it feels increasingly one-sided. Businesses demand more and more data from individuals, yet struggle to manage it effectively, leading to hidden costs and missed opportunities.

In looking at the concept of 'smart data', and data portability more generally, it would be great if there was one area that stood out as both tactically and strategically as a great place to start. To cross that chasm, one might consider the following start points.

What if there was a viable means for individuals to receive fair value and utility from their data, and for businesses to directly access the personal data they need in a transparent, compliant way?

We in the DataPal team have been developing our core product for the last 12 months, and actively running our ’Simulator’ environment for 9. We’ve learned a lot along the way. In this post we summarise those learnings, and begin to point the way forward to the live product launch.

Many would say that her outlook is quite bleak: Having to input her details time after time to live in her digital world; then having to give her consent for the data to be used; little control over this data once she has given it; increasing levels of identity theft; huge imposition of irrelevant promotional messages. And all of is this driving a multi-billion dollar industry of which she has no share.