THE MOST VALUABLE PART OF YOUR WORKDAY COMES DURING THE 4 HOURS YOU SURF THE WEB:

It has become the Internet's defining business model: free online services make their money by feeding on all the personal data generated by their users. Think Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, and how they serve targeted ads based on your preferences and interests, or make deals to share collected data with other companies (see "What Facebook Knows").

Before the end of this year, Web users should be able to take a more active role in monetizing their personal data. Michael Fertik, cofounder and CEO of startup Reputation.com, says his company will launch a feature that lets users share certain personal information with other companies in return for discounts or other perks. [...]

"The basic business model of the Internet today is that we're going to take your data without your knowledge and permission and give it to people that you can't identify for purposes you'll never know," says Fertik.

Fertik says he has spoken with a range of large companies and their marketers who are interested in his impending "consumer data vault," as the new feature is called. He won't yet give specifics about what data people will be able to trade, or what for, but he did tell MIT Technology Review that major airlines like the idea. "All of the airlines we talked to would like to be able to extend provisional platinum status to certain types of fliers to get some kind of loyalty," he says. "It's very hard for airlines to gain a sense of who is worth [it] today."

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