The Only Way to Get Real Privacy Online: Introducing MyTerms
Wednesday, 28 January 2026 from 16:00 to 17:00 (GMT)
Introduction
As regional organizations such as KC Digital Drive continue advancing initiatives through their Digital Inclusion and Innovation Playbook, conversations around digital trust, governance, and long-term sustainability are becoming increasingly important. Building a digitally competitive community is not only about infrastructure and workforce development, but also about how the individuals interact and are protected within these systems. Against this backdrop, I attended a recent webinar titled “The Only Way to Get Real Privacy Online: Introducing MyTerms,” which introduced a global standard from IEEE aimed at redefining how personal data is managed and consented to in the digital economy.
The webinar examined the longstanding concerns with online privacy practices, focusing on the complexity and opacity of modern terms of service agreements, before introducing MyTerms as a potential structural alternative. Rather than continuing the existing model of passive acceptance to these dense legal contracts, the presenters outlined a new framework in which individuals would establish machine-readable privacy terms of their own. Below is a summary of the key themes, use cases, and proposed benefits discussed during the webinar.
Webinar Recap
For over 30 years, cookies have been weaponized into an invasive surveillance based on dense terms that consumers don’t read and don’t understand. This leaves current consent notices “meaningless and impenetrable” resulting in “shadow transactions” of user data. For example, a human reader would take 45 minutes to read the TikTok terms of service. MyTerms was drafted with support from Doc Searls, author of Intention Economy and presented by Kari McMullen, John Havens, Joyce Searls, and Christopher Wilson as a proposed solution.
The IEEE 7012-2025 global standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms creates MyTerms. MyTerms seeks to give control back to individuals through the creation of contracts managed by individuals using a digital wallet or browser plug-in. These terms could also be delegated to AI Agents, which are expected to be over 80% of web traffic by 2030.
In this context, an agent was described as a software program that acts on behalf of an individual in digital environments. Unlike traditional automated tools, an AI agent would be capable of interpreting a user’s preferences, applying predefined privacy terms, and interacting with websites or platforms accordingly. For example, rather than manually reviewing multiple sites, an agent could communicate a user’s purchasing intent under specific contractual conditions and evaluate responses in real time.
Though MyTerms individuals will set terms and conditions for engagement with their data. This could be as simple as “deliver the service, but don’t track” or “data can be used for good projects only”. Both parties accept the terms giving the interaction a “fair handshake” to proceed. With MyTerms, the agent would not create new terms independently, but would instead operationalize the individual’s previously established privacy conditions at scale.
Example terms include:
- Service delivery only (like physical bakery interaction)
- Service delivery with data portability
- Personal one-time data contributions (e.g., anonymous AI training)
- Operations data for good projects
- Sharing intent data across multiple sites
The panelists presented several use cases of MyTerms:
- Shopping (Dan Leininger from Consumer Reports): An AI Agent broadcasts to retailers that they “want to buy x under these terms”, which then retailers compete, avoiding the need to compare websites.
- Creators (Trista Yeager from MDWST Fable): Artists can identify fans based on fans simply sharing with creators that they are fans.
- Age Verification (John Abbot from Yoti): The privacy controls and contracts could be scaled to be age-appropriate – a 13 year old would have different contract terms than a 18+ year old, and improve the age verification check process.
Founders John Bruce presented Inrupt, which are data wallets in beta built on Solid architecture and Jamie Smith presented Customer Futures Ltd, which are working on personal AI Agents that would be MyTerms compliant.
The benefits listed are primarily to advance digital sovereignty, choice and trust for individuals. Platforms and businesses would also benefit through lowered compliance burdens and decreased risks. Additionally, if a website or business is compliant in abiding by the contract terms, they will be able to display a trust mark indicating their compliance. If a website or business is not compliant, they will be added to a list of non-compliant sites and publicly shamed, which presumably will lower public trust.
They are seeking funding to both continue to work on this project and future enforcement. To find out more visit their website: https://myterms.info/