Verifiable Provenance for the Web

The web was originally conceived as a decentralized information-sharing medium, where data could be freely created, linked, and shared without inherent restrictions. Over the past three decades, it has transformed into a dynamic, ever-evolving ecosystem where information spreads rapidly, misinformation mutates, and digital assets change hands at an unprecedented scale. While this openness has fueled unparalleled knowledge dissemination, it has also introduced critical challenges surrounding provenance, ethical web data usage, and accountability. The ubiquity of web data, combined with a lack of enforcement mechanisms for data usage restrictions, has led to an increasing number of cases of personal, creative, and proprietary data misuse. Yet, much of our current web intelligence lacks reliable mechanisms to verify content origins, track modifications over time, and assess trustworthiness. As the web continues to expand, it is imperative to address several fundamental questions: (i) How do we grant or revoke consent for future, uncertain web data analyses? (ii) How can web data be ethically repurposed beyond its original intent while ensuring accountability? (iii) What does responsible web data collection, usage, and sharing look like in a world where anonymity and pseudonymity blur individual accountability? These are not just theoretical dilemmas but urgent technical challenges that demand verifiable provenance mechanisms to track data origins, monitor transformations, and enforce responsible reuse. One of the core deficiencies in traditional web infrastructures is their inability to capture temporal changes, making it difficult to verify the evolution of information, trace misinformation back to its source, and establish long-term accountability.