Are we about to build twenty smart data schemes… when what we really need is one smart data network?

Twenty ways to fragment the same underlying problem.

What’s needed is not twenty schemes.

It’s a single, interoperable smart data network that can support all of them—and many more.

Retail media has become one of the defining growth engines of modern marketing. What began as an extension of shopper marketing—sponsored listings, on-site placements, and closed-loop attribution—has evolved into a sophisticated ecosystem powered by first-party data (1PD), AI, and increasingly advanced measurement frameworks.

Customer Agency in Action isn’t a better chatbot. It’s not a smarter recommendation engine. It’s something more fundamental: Customers with their own agents, operating on their own data, fulfilling their own intentions. Two modes. One principle: You are in control. Not the retailer. Not the platform. Not the algorithm.

Our data shapes thousands of buying decisions every year — yet today, it mostly works against you. With AI, fiduciary agents, and MyTerms, individuals can finally put their data to work on their own terms. This article explores why that shift will redefine marketing, trust, and digital power.

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.

Imagine being able to use your own energy, insurance, banking, broadband, pension or rewards data to compare deals, switch provider, optimise spending, support research, join group buying, resolve customer service issues, or safely share access with family members, attorneys or executors.

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).

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?