Smart Contracts as Data Quality Consensus Enforcers in Data Markets

Data markets offer a way for organizations to trade data products with each other. Data in data products typically ranges from carefully formatted raw data to comprehensive insights for business decision-making. However, the lack of trust between data sellers and buyers makes transactions in the data markets challenging. The agreements regarding the quality of the data offered and consumed must be established and automatically enforced. This work proposes a smart contract-based framework to enable peer-to-peer value exchange in data markets while enforcing consensus between data sellers and buyers on data quality. We developed the framework using the design science research methodology and implemented it using Solidity. The implementation was deployed and tested on the Ethereum blockchain platform. Moreover, we used semi-structured interviews with experts to validate and refine the proposed data transaction protocol.