Blockchain based Resource Governance for Decentralized Web Environments

Although the development of centralized web-based platforms have brought about economic and societal benefits, such platforms have also resulted in the concentration of power in a small number of web stakeholders. Decentralization initiatives, such as Solid and ActivityPub, aim to give data owners more control over their data and to level the playing field by enabling small companies and individuals to gain access to data thus stimulating innovation. However, these initiatives typically employ access control mechanisms that cannot verify compliance with usage conditions after access has been granted to others. Thus, in this paper, we extend the state of the art by proposing a resource governance conceptual framework, entitled ReGov, that facilitates usage control in decentralized web environments. We subsequently demonstrate how our framework can be instantiated by combining blockchain and trusted execution environments. Additionally, we evaluate its effectiveness through a detailed analysis of requirements derived from a data market motivating scenario, as well as an assessment of the security, privacy, and affordability aspects of our proposal.