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A link contract is an approach to data control in a distributed
data sharing
Data sharing is the practice of making data used for scholarly research available to other investigators. Many funding agencies, institutions, and publication venues have policies regarding data sharing because transparency and openness are consid ...
network. Link contracts are a key feature of the XDI specifications under development at OASIS.
In XDI, a link contract is a machine-readable XDI document that governs the sharing of other XDI data. Unlike a conventional Web link, which is essentially a one-dimensional "string" that "pulls" a linked document into a browser, a link contract is a graph of metadata (typically in JSON) that can actively control the flow of data from a publisher to a subscriber by either "push" or "pull". The flow is controlled by the terms of the contract, which can be as flexible and extensible as real-world contracts, i.e., link contracts can govern:
* Identification: Who are the parties to the contract?
* Authority: Who controls the data being shared via the contract?
* Authentication: How will each party prove its identity to the other?
* Authorization: Who has what access rights and privileges to the data?
* Scope: What data does it cover?
* Permission and Privacy: What uses can be made of the data and by whom?
* Synchronization: How and when will the subscriber receive updates to the data?
* Termination: What happens when the data sharing relationship is ended?
* Recourse: How will any disputes over the contract be resolved?
Like real-world contracts, link contracts can also refer to other link contracts. Using this design, the vast majority of link contracts can be very simple, referring to a very small number of more complex link contracts that have been carefully designed to reflect the requirements of common data exchange scenarios (e.g., business cards, mailing lists, e-commerce transactions, website registrations, etc.)
Link contracts have been proposed as a key element of digital trust frameworks such as those published by the non-profi Open Identity Exchange
Social Web
The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social inte ...