A Survey on Data Pricing: From Economics to Data Science

Data are invaluable. How can we assess the value of data objectively, systematically and quantitatively? Pricing data, or information goods in general, has been studied and practiced in dispersed areas and principles, such as economics, marketing, electronic commerce, data management, data mining and machine learning. In this article, we present a unified, interdisciplinary and comprehensive overview of this important direction. We examine various motivations behind data pricing, understand the economics of data pricing and review the development and evolution of pricing models according to a series of fundamental principles. We discuss both digital products and data products. We also consider a series of challenges and directions for future work.

Automated summary

This article presents a unified and comprehensive overview of the pricing of data, studying it from various interdisciplinary perspectives such as economics, marketing, electronic commerce, data management, etc. It discusses the motivations behind data pricing, the economic principles involved, and the development and evolution of pricing models. The article also considers the challenges and future directions in this field.