How often can a brand contact you?

By capturing your contact and cadence preferences (and the ability to enforce them), you can control the flow of comms from brands you like.

Privacy/Tech lawyer + Profila team of (20+) industry experts with CX & privacy expertise from multinationals. Product bèta-ready, pilot ongoing, several projects already funded via Catalyst (one finished, see report on townhall 3 March 2022).

[IMPACT]

Short summary of the Profila app (as testing ground for this fund 6 POCs) - Profila is a platform (mobile IOS/Android application for individuals and a web-based dashboard for companies, organizations, governments and other legal entities, we call "Brands") that enables individuals to communicate with various organizations in their lives, privately, one-to-one, and without supervision or surveillance.

People can manage their digital life in one location via an app that shows which organisations have access to (certain parts of) their personal data. People can sort all their personal information, product preferences and communication preferences and communicate with all the organizations they want to interact with in the same easy way (instead of on each individual organization's platform each time). The entire tool is design for people to (1) gain control over their personal data; (2) choose to ethically share (or not) they personal data with organisations, and (3) get compensated if they do (today only in fiat).

Big picture explanation of the current proposal . We are developing an umbrella concept with the code name "Metronome" which is based on the idea of empowering individuals with granular control within different data scenarios and relationship archetypes. These features will involve providing clear consent about the channel preference, cadence, and type of communication allowed between organizations (whether being brands, companies, or other kinds of organizations), In short, it enables individuals to have full control over the flow through the "pipes". These explicit preferences will be controlled by individuals across all of their scenarios and relationships or more granular per brand or industry. These preferences will be captured by utilizing translation metadata to ensure that the scope and details of these preferences are captured and enforced. Our own Cardano-native token called "Zero Knowledge Token" or ZEKE will be integrated into this feature so that people can unlock more granular and detailed controls with more ZEKE, gamifying the experience of controlling how brands can contact you.

Detailed explanation of Metronome:

1. Transactional Scenarios

There are many instances where individuals want to convey a signal to the market for their interest in specific products and/or services and want to do so in a zero-knowledge or minimal-knowledge environment. And the individual may also want to specific through what channels they wish to receive information/offers and how many offers they wish to receive within a specific time frame. Lastly, they can decide to do so in a true zero-knowledge environment or one where some a minimal amount of information is provided in order to help companies provide more targeted and relevant offers.

Let's take two examples (one for each).

An individual decides to take up a new hobby (let's say, archery). That new hobby will involve procuring the proper equipment and clothing, training and instructions, and general resources to help the individual begin their journey to integrating this new hobby into their lives. They may wish to discover companies that cater to that hobby but do not want to be overwhelmed with offers or ads based on their observed behavior on search engines and social media. Instead, they would convey an Interest Signal which would include the required metadata that conveys

- what channel they want to receive information in

- What kinds of content/services they wish to receive (products and/or service)

- How many offers/ads they wish to receive per type within a defined period (per week, per month).

In this scenario, it may be irrelevant the gender or geographic location of the individual, so this scenario could run as a Zero-Knowledge one, with no personally identifiable information passing through, only the Interest Signal and the stated preferences.

A second scenario would fall under the Minimal Knowledge area where the recipient has information that is pertinent to responding but nothing that is directly identifiable to an individual. An individual decides they want to purchase a new automobile. Beyond that Buying Signal, it would be useful for companies to know more about the person in order to make the best offer. These might include general location (for instance, Canada), and some lifestyle details which will need to be accommodated by any purchase (for instance, 2 kids, 3 large dogs, hobbies including skiing/snowboarding). The individual can then dictate the preferences for offers that would be captured with defined metadata

- what channel they want to receive offers in

- When they want the offers and when do they expect to make the purchase.

- How many offers/ads they wish to receive and for how long of a time period.

These would be considered qualified leads by automobile companies since there is clear interest and intent, while also allowing the individuals to product scarcity (in defining the number of offers) and controlling the cadence of offers before they make a decision.

In general, these use cases are defined as Transactional; short term needs with defined timelines and outcomes. Let's turn our attention to more longer-term, relationship-centric scenarios

2. Relationship Archetypes

In the Profila mode relationships are either defined as one-way or bi-directional. One way relationships (where an individual expresses interest in a brand's product or services but there is no data subscription offered or accepted) are called Connections.

Connections

An individual can connect with a brand that they know they like or occasional make purchases from. It's not vital that the brand have a defined known data relationship with the individual (so no names or other intimate details required). In this kind of relationship, the individual may just want to know the new products offered by the company once or twice a year, or want to receive offers or discounts for their next purchase. It is a casual relationship but one that is still profitable to the company since it produces revenue with minimal marketing effort.

In this scenario, an individual can connect with a brand and then define the terms of the interaction.

- what channels they want to receive offers/content

- The types of content they wish to receive (product updates, company social campaigns, offers and discounts)

- How often they will allow these contacts (once or twice a year, for example).

These preferences will be stored with metadata contracts along with the defined preferences about which personal data is provided (perhaps the person's gender, age, and city/country). Combined, the individual as asserted control over what the company knows about them as individuals and how often they should expect to be contacted and through which channel. And for the brand, they now have an existing customer who can be marketed too with less effort, higher engagement (since it's according to their preferences) and better conversation and return on their minimal marketing investment.

Subscribers

The other relationship scenario present in the Profila model is one of Subscription. In this scenario, a brand sends a subscription offer to an individual with the request for specific types of personal information; demographic and psychographic based on self-discovery quizzes organized into categories). This offer is for defined renumeration and for a defined duration of time. The individual can accept or reject the offer after reviewing the conditions and requests. This agreement will be captured in a transaction metadata contract as per the previous Profila proposal for Catalyst.

The second aspect of this relationship is a separate contract capturing the metadata as defined by the individual for the expected behavior within the relationship. These stated preferences would take a similar form as what we've seen in earlier scenarios above

- what channel would they like their communication in

- What kind of communication types are allowed

- How often they will allow communication per type

- Any special timely preferences, such as wanting to restrict content for a certain amount of time (for holiday or because a product line is not relevant to the individual for the coming time period).

As an example, imagine an individual has accepted a subscription offer from a shoe company that specializes in outdoor footwear. The individual is a brand loyalist and has a range of this brand's offerings (from sandals to shoes to hiking boots). The individual expects to be a long term customer of this brand but right now their current collection of shoes are relatively new and they are not in the market for a purchase for the coming 9-12 months. While this individual currently has their preferences stated as accepting monthly offers and updates through their preferred channel, they want to change these preferences so that they receive no offers for the next 12 months but would appreciate any updates on socially conscious projects the company is involved with. These new preferences would be captured, overwriting the previous preferences, and the brand would know that, to keep this customer happy, they can scale back their marketing efforts until this brand loyalist is ready to purchase a new product in a year's time.

3. Governance / Enforcement

All of these examples open up a new range of empowerment for individuals to create and manage their communication preferences to a degree not possible with any current solution or platform. But without a defined governance and enforcement this power would be moot. Thankfully, we have very simple but powerful ways to completely enforce the preferences stored as metadata in contracts.

If the chosen channel for communications is the Profila platform (where individuals would receive communication in the form of posts or messages) we will be able to use the preference metadata to enforce those preferences. For instance, if I have informed a brand that I wish to only receive one offer a month, the amount of communication possibilities available to a brand will be "0"they sent me something last week. It will only become "1" again in three weeks time. Since communication through the platform is based on available engagements, that brand will have no mechanism to send additional communications beyond my stated preference. Within our platform these preferences are completely enforceable.

If the chosen channel for communication is email, we also have a solution, similar to one's employed by Apple and others. Each Profila user will have an @profila.com address which can be registered by the user as their default email (what is exposed to brands) but has a corresponding personal address (such as an @gmail.com or @outlook.com address) that communication is routed through. Because Profila can play the role of protector and middle-man, we can again enforce the preferences stated by the user. Profila can play the gatekeeper role that each individual decides they want us to play. Or not. It is always up to each individual.

The challenge is as follows: "what applications will provide the most value for end users in 2022"?

We are confident that our proposal addresses this challenge because we are expecting several companies onto our platform in the next months, who will benefit from the functionality we develop under this proposal

• We are onboarding 100.000+ users onto the App in the next months, as part of a pilot with a large multinational.
• All of these people will be able to use these privacy functionalities to better understand how to take control of their data with brands and how to control how brands use this data to send them content.
• A feature like metronome doesn't exist today on the internet, and will revolutionize the way we think about data ownership. The Cardano blockchain integration will make sure that each decision you take (on how you can be contacted) will be immutable, so you can make brands accountable if they do not abide by your instructions.

Challenges

1. Scalability and speed of Cardano blockchain for high volume transaction if millions of people would use the ledger to share their preferences and communication instructions (via Metronome) with multiple brands.
2. Cost of high volume transaction ledger/record of all blockchain entries (we'll have to work with batching metronome settings together instead of 1 person-1entry).

Risks

1. Cardano blockchain speed and cost might be prohibitive to project success/adoption
2. Personal information of a user on the blockchain (even if hashed) forms a risk. Workaround to be researched under this proposal

[FEASIBILITY]

For a detailed version of the Profila roadmap, see attached the "Profila pitch deck".

The milestones & deliverables for this specific proposal are as follows: (post funding):

• Week 1-2: project kickoff with COO, internal dev team and external game developer, internal dev team discussing technical requirements to be included in the PRD (product requirement document)

• Week 3: submission of the PRD (product requirement document) by business team (start week), with comments of the development team (end week).

• Week 4 final PRD submitted, with project divided in 14 days sprints, with scrum calls and update calls in the calendar of all team members.

• Week 5: first development work starts.

• month 2: designer produces new screens for in the app in parallel of dev work

• month 3: integration of new design screens

• month 4: integration of Cardano native wallets in the app for batch payouts of tokens gained via app-activities (to research which wallet is most appropriate)

Via this submission, we are requesting funding to develop our metronome POC, which will require at least a budget of 46.666,08 USD for a 4-month development project, to be allocated as follows:

• 15 days of senior blockchain developer @ 800 USD per day

• 20 days of web/backend developer @ 400 USD per day

• 20 days of app developer @ 400 USD per hour

• 14 days of legal and operational work, including reporting, weekly scrum calls, 2 weekly catalyst reporting calls, reporting form (including final reporting) @ 950 USD per day

41.400 EURO converted to USD --> 46.666,08

Team – We have a versatile team with experience in blockchain projects that is able and committed to tackle this challenge. Please find below more information on the Profila leadership team:

• MICHIEL VAN ROEY, (Co-founder, Crypto-legal expert and Chief Legal Officer); Belgian, 10 years XP as EU-qualified business lawyer in international law firms, an international organization (CERN), and a multinational company (Cisco). Specialized in tech & and privacy law; author crypto-asset regulations (see https://thelawreviews.co.uk/title/the-virtual-currency-regulation-review/belgium). See LinkedIn profile of Michiel, https://www.linkedin.com/in/michielvanroey/.

• RAJASEKARAN YOGARAJAH (Chief Technology Officer), Swiss resident, 15 years XP as software developed and serial entrepreneur, with experience in blockchain-based business models and e-commerce platforms. See LinkedIn, see https://www.linkedin.com/in/life-artist/.

• SHAWN BOONE JENSEN, (Founder & CEO); South African; 20+ years XP in senior management role in ISP's, SI and global Telco organizations, most recently as Head of Product &Head of Customer Presales and Service MEA in Vodafone Global Enterprise (VGE). See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnj/.

• LUKE BRAGG, (Chief Product Officer); US citizen & Swiss resident; 20 years XP designing creative digital solutions for complex organizations (G7 organization in Russia; digital strategy lead for Akzo Nobel in the Netherlands; Director of Enterprise Architecture for Merck/MSD). See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasbragg/.

• IPEK SAHINER, (Chief Operating Officer); Swiss and Turkish citizen, Computer Engineer with 20 years XP as computer engineer and project manager in the telecom sector at Nokia, supporting local Swiss and global network operators. See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ipeksahinerschlecht/.

• MICHAEL RAVA, (Chief Marketing Officer); Swiss; high-end networker with over 30 years of business experience as entrepreneur, influencer, consultant, advisor, investor, full-stack marketer, brand and retail expert, social media visionary, keynote speaker, and digital ethic warrior. See Linkedin, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravamichael/.

• REMY MERCKX (Chief Growth Officer); French; 23 years XP in the Travel & Hospitality Industry,

Please find below more information on the Profila advisory team:

• CLARA-ANN GORDON, Swiss; partner at Niederer Kraft Frey (NKF; Zürich), legal advisor to Profila. See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/clara-ann-gordon/.

• ELIE AUVRAY, French; co-Founder of logion (public blockchain network), blockchain advisor to Profila; See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/elieauvray/.

• MIKKO KOTILA, Finnish, software developer and ad-tech industry expert, technology advisor to Profila; See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikkokotila/.

• PHILIP LAMS, Belgian, serial entrepreneur & Profila board member, sales & business advisor to Profila; See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-lams-a9a64215/.

[AUDITABILITY]

Profila will provide the community with detailed periodical progress for this proposal (once funded) in the following ways:

1. Github repository updated (1x per month, after the initial scrum sessions for creation of the PRD, product requirement document

1. Two-weekly updates to other Cardano proposers via the Catalyst coordinator call

1. Two-weekly updates in our "Cardano projects" newsletter (register via our website https://ico.profila.com))

1. Monthly project process and KPI reports submitted to Catalyst teams and available to the public for verification

1. Monthly Swarm session office hour (at end of townhall) for a Question and Answer session about our funded project

1. Periodical AMAs by the Profila founders to talk about our progress

Imagine an individual who has a wealth of brand relationships; from those where they are a loyalist and those brands they interact/purchase from on occasion. In addition, they enjoy discovering new brands and products. In all of these cases, this individual has created a simple structure where they control how often and even when during the week the ads, content, and offers come to them. The rest of the week they can enjoy life without the constant bombardment of email newsletters & unwanted and irrelevant ads in their chosen channel. And when they decide to go on holiday that can put a temporary stop on the entire flow. In short, they are in control, with their privacy and data protected. And brands can now spend their time on quality instead of quantity.

Counting from the end of the voting results, success after 3 months would be the developed POC for this smart contract. Success after 6 months would be the integration of this smart contract POC into our existing app and first test with our existing customer. Success after 12 months would be a full fledged deployment of the POC, used for each data subscription.

Identical proposal submitted under fund 6 metadata challenge, where it was voted to be funded BUT funds were just insufficient. https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/370223