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It\\u2019s a line we\\u2019ve heard over and over in movies and books. We\\u2019ve used it, or some variation of it, ourselves. That\\u2019s because there are many aspects of life that we simply have to take with a certain degree of trust. We trust that our brakes will work, we trust that our kids aren\\u2019t sneaking out of the house at night, that our doctor isn\\u2019t a quack. In short, even in the small, mundane aspects of our lives, we rely on others to be honest with us. One could even say that trust is the most valuable thing in society.

But wait! Don\\u2019t we always go on about how \\u2018data is the new gold\\u2019? Yes, and that\\u2019s true. Data is the most valuable commodity. Trust, however, is not merely a commodity, a resource that can be bought and sold. Trust makes it possible to buy and sell in the first place. In order for data to be a valuable commodity in the first place, we have to be able to trust it.\\xa0

This is even more apparent in the more macro aspects of life. We trust our parents to tell us the truth about life. We would like to trust our political, business, and religious leaders to tell us the truth. We expect those delivering the news to tell us honestly what is going on in the world. Yet, we can all point to many examples of these very authority figures lying to us, sometimes very obviously.\\xa0

The constant lying that we have learned to take for granted has generated a true crisis of trust, which itself has led to fresh and strange realignments. Many people go through life now not having any idea of what to believe and who to trust. Others reject one set of lies but reflexively believe whatever someone else tells them, quickly becoming unable to even hear others. This is how we have gotten to a world where a disturbing number of people believe the moon landing was faked and others even argue that the world is flat. It\\u2019s easy to dismiss such people as fools, yet, it isn\\u2019t entirely their fault. They\\u2019ve grown up in an environment where you can never trust the official story, where critical thinking is confused with rejecting what your parents or some other authority figure told you. In a world of lies, they think the only truth is the one thing you aren\\u2019t allowed to believe.\\xa0

Not only is this sad, but it is also utterly unsustainable. Without trust, society simply can\\u2019t continue. While we at TARTLE can\\u2019t solve all of modern society\\u2019s trust issues, we can help in our little corner. We can point out when companies are not acting truthfully with regard to how they acquire their data. We can be an example that doesn\\u2019t put profits before people. We can be transparent about how we operate, allowing people to see how their data plays a role in our business and how we make a buck not from people giving us their data but others buying it data.\\xa0

TARTLE can help by providing truthful data directly from the source, from you the individual. Data that is untainted by any bias, free of the assumptions that are built into any algorithm. By doing this, by helping people to get the source, to get the truth behind the data, maybe we can help rebuild some tiny sense that trust is possible. By being transparent, we can show that it is possible to operate a global company without lying, or being secretive. By setting an example and spreading the word with your help, maybe we can help put just a little trust back into our troubled world.

What\\u2019s your data worth? www.tartle.co