Are you sick of advertisers tracking your every move online? If so, then join the club – according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, almost two thirds of Americans feel exactly the same way, yet the online behavioral advertising industry (as the stalkers like to refer themselves) continues to grow unchecked as more and more companies see the value in it.

Sad to say, if you want to use the internet, then there’s very little you can do to stop advertisers from learning all about you, and using that data to try and entice you with targeted ads.

But while you can’t prevent being spied on, it turns out that there is a chance you can at least make some money from it – thanks to an intriguing new startup going by the name of Enliken that wants to ‘sell’ your personal data for you.

The whole point is that advertisers do indeed value consumer data, and they’re quite prepared to pay good money for it, claims Enliken co-founder Marc Guildmann in an interview with the New York Times.

“We see data as a currency. Why don’t we help the people who are creating the information monetize it?” he asks.

Guildimann says that Enliken offers consumers a chance to finally cut out the middleman (data tracking companies), and is the “least destructive and most efficient” way to make the web a privacy-friendly place to be.

The concept is very simple. Anyone who wants to sell their private data has to download Enliken’s software, which then carefully monitors their online use and captures their behavioral data. One of the best advantages for consumers is that Enliken also filters the data before passing it on to third parties, ensure that nothing ‘unsuitable’ is sold off to the advertisers.

There are a few downsides though. First, your data is actually valued pretty cheaply, at just $1 per month. Enlinken then earns a 10% commission on this, meaning that you actually only receive $0.90 each month.

Another problem (for some, anyway) is that you won’t actually receive a cent of this money anyway; instead, Enliken simply lets you donate your earnings to the charity of your choice. It might be a noble idea, but unfortunately I can’t see it being enough for the idea to catch on in a big way…

However, Guildimann says that making money out of this is not the point, insisting that people will be attracted to the idea more out of a desire to have control over who gets to access their online persona:

“When you empower people to control something, you make them feel good.”