also facebook and friends got that big because they attracted some investment based on the promise to gain control of this mountain of personal data - all for the purpose of pushing personalized adds. Bruce Schneier means that when he says 'surveillance as the business model of the internet'

decentralized technologies would promise to benefit all participants; but i guess the problem here is legal protection; a registrar based on blockchain is a contract that would require legal recognition; how easy would it be to achieve such a change?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Bitcoin_by_country

this article has lots of words even when the currency is legal.