The academic article presented by Mazi and other two authors on “The Influence of Black-Market Activities through Dark Web on The Economy: A Survey”. The research paper relates with the macro-economic perspective of the business that influences a global scale after the introduction of the Dark web. The Dark Web has provided access to any type of business or size to expand its business outside of the geographical location that impacts the economy of individual countries and the whole world (Akintaro et al., 2019). The research has focused on the Deep web, networking securities, cyber security, hacking, GDP, black market and other key concepts. As per the survey of Crowne UK, around 23 of 50 brands has been affected or damaged by the dark web (Mazi et al., 2019).
Out of these the key business areas in the UK such as Banking and Finance (8), Telecommunication (6), retail and entertainment (4) and, energy and transportation (3) has recorded damaged as businesses affected. However, there is a difference between the dark web and the deep web as they getmerged in the black market.
Figure 1: Cyber Underground Market
(Source: Maziet al., 2020)
As per the above figure, the surface web is often considered as the common search engine which is easy to reach and indexed and use by anyone such as Google, Facebook and YouTube. However, the figure represents the bigger portion of the internet contributed through Deep Web which is not easily accessed by everyday internet users that contain all digital data or not readily indexed information (Akintaro et al., 2019). The deep web provides information related to specific documents, messages, emails, files and many more. Thirdly, the dark web contains those sites which are not easily reached by surface web due to government regulations in different countries. It is a fact that the dark web is connected with illegal and criminal activities which contribute around 50% to the Dark Web. Some of the users include Freedom Fighters, Whistle-blowers, Discrimination and Abuse Victims, Corporations and Governments, and Government surveillance or censorship (Martin et al., 2019).
However, this cybercrime market growth has contributed from the specialised market, free tools, software, control attack system, botnets, spam websites, emails, and other service models. Other contributing products such as social media accounts, credit card numbers, video game services, and mobile applications are sold in the underground market. The attackers can easily steal the account credentials through spam emails, linked attached messages, software, malware website, and other communication channels. As per the RAND research, the experts predicted thatcyber-attacks are more advanced in terms of technology compared to defenders. Hence, the regulators need to take quick actions on formulating privacy policy and defending technologies (Mazi et al., 2019).
Considering the overall impact on the economy, the black market affects the GDP and revenue of individual countries. However, the black market recorded 10% of the Developed economy's GDP and one-third of the developing country’s economy. As per Havoscope, the revenue from the black market is estimated at around $1.8 billion. However, if the USA taxed the black market, it could earn $400 to $500 billion in the country’s economy. The total amount is estimated at $2.2 trillion in human trafficking as government fail to explore the opportunity to tax the black market. However, it benefits businesses rather than the financial society and economy (Albrecht et al., 2019).
The study has provided a deep understanding and comparison among surface web, dark web and deep web. Moreover, it ensures to generate a sense of impact of black market on the businesses around the UK (Mazi et al., 2019). The study has provided a key point in terms of failure to track and tax black market transactions that benefit businesses to share information that does not provide easy access (Akintaro et al., 2019). However, the information gained through dark web services is largely used by businesses and the government to track sensitive information with relation to illegal and criminal activities.
The black market has its benefits for businesses that generates significant amount of revenue, however, it becomes difficult to track by government officials. Hence, the developed and developing economies fail to tax those services that could contribute large amounts of revenue to the economy. The study maintains its focus on the understanding of the impact of dark web activities on the economy (Akintaro et al., 2019). However, the study fails to release its information related to its impact on technological changes, government policies and privacy procedures. Moreover, it does not provide the economic impact on social behaviour, societal changes, data protection guidelines and consumer demand on technological products.
The survey report fails to depict the impact of black market on the macro-economic perspective (Pete et al., 2020). It has not presented a complete analysis on the ground base that at what level the black market can be dangerous for businesses, customers and government. However, it states the benefits of black market that can be exploited by communities or countries through taxation policy (Maziet al., 2019). As per the macro-economic perspective, the black-market industry would be impacted through technological and legal factors. The government regulators and private businesses such as banking and other technologies have to advance their innovation to protect the data of people in future. However, cybercrime people are more advanced in terms of hacking and developing malware.
The growth in black market industry would create opportunities for global economies to form taxation and reform privacy policy to generate revenue and detention towards criminals. However, financial transaction through dark web becomes difficult to access and reach by a normal user (Albrecht et al., 2019). The survey could describe certain recommendations in terms of policies, activities, guidelines and technologies which can be used to protect information against black market sharing activities (Mazi et al., 2019). Hence, it issuggested to reform global data protection regulation and privacy act in businesses to punish the owners and businesses on the involvement over dark web activities unless it is permittable. Lastly, the economies need to define their positive and negative impact in terms of technology, legal and regulatory requirements against black market to enhance growth and revenue generation to control financial trade (Albrecht et al., 2019). Many criminals are targeting money laundering process through dark web such as cryptocurrencies to engage with illegal activities. It would create economic monopoly for criminals those safeguards financially. However, the public sector and government has to form new cryptocurrency policies to exploit the use of deep web to gain information about the control over such as intangible money.
Author: Ivan Harkins
Profile: Sr Economics Professor UK Univeristy
Company: LiveWebTutors
