Abstract

Data has become a prevailing aspect of our daily lives, becoming ever more present since the beginning of the 21st century. It is a commodity in today’s world and the amount of data being produced has increased enormously. One of the major ways data is produced and collected is from the use of websites and web-based applications. This data is later used for many different purposes. This paper presents findings from a multivocal literature review, exploring the methods of how this data is collected, what the data is used for once it has been collected, the ethics of data and its collection, and the future of data collection. Among the possible futures, we introduce the concept of socially-critical applications, where data harvesting in web-based applications might require premarket disclosure and evaluation by notified bodies (instructed by regulation) as a means to break the existing cycle of technology companies outpacing under resourced and ill-equipped regulators. Rather than regulators continually falling short of enacting laws to satisfy the common good, a new class of socially-critical application could be created in law to permit pre-market evaluation of applications (or versions of applications) that could undermine or interrupt the common good.