Gen Z's new side hustle: selling data

Selling data is becoming the new selling plasma. Many young people are more willing than their parents to share personal data, giving companies deeper insight into their lives. Generation Lab, a youth polling company, is launching a new product, Verb.AI — betting that buying this data is the future of polling. "We think corporations have extracted user data without fairly compensating people for their own data," says Cyrus Beschloss, CEO of Generation Lab. "We think users should know exactly what data they're giving us and should feel good about what they're receiving in return." Generation Lab offers people cash — $50 or more per month, depending on use and other factors — to download a tracker onto their phones. It tracks things like what you browse, what you buy, which streaming apps you use — all anonymously. Verb then uses that data to create a digital twin of you that lives in a central database and knows your preferences. Generation Lab says this method of polling will give companies, nonprofits, and news organizations more accurate information about how young people really think by tracking their behavior instead of asking them about it.