Terms of Use for internet-based data are enforced with written legal agreements today. This approach works well when data is centralized but can break down when copies of data are involved. Policing these policies can be expensive for the company responsible for the data.

It is difficult to ensure that those who handle your data are complying with the restrictions outlined in the legal agreements. If your data is managed by multiple third parties, the restrictions that you want are interpreted and implemented by each party. Unfortunately, universal electronic enforcement is not practical across today’s distributed systems.

The latest generation of blockchain technology “surrounds” your data and only allow operations you define. Instead of asking for a list of fields such as Listing Price or Address, a user would ask for a “Listing”. The Smart Contract builds the response.

The earlier generation of blockchain was optimized for distribution and integrity and included the Smart Contract concept by they are easily bypassed. If business rules were written, it was still possible to access the underlying data. For example, if showing instructions for a listing were put on one of these blockchains, then casual users could access them.

Blockchain technology allows you to enforce the Terms of Use for your information, electronically, using Smart Contracts. Your business rules “surround” your data and there is no way for the user to bypass the business rules.