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We consider the emerging trade in big data through commercial transactions. Through a wide ranging systematic literature review that covers both academic and practitioner perspectives, we first demonstrate that there is increasing interest in big data commercialization, which mostly consists of exploratory theoretical development and managerial prescriptions to date. We outline the new types of businesses that seek to create and appropriate value, including the data supplier, data manager, data custodian, data aggregator, application developer and service provider. Building upon this typology, we discuss the processes of business model emergence, and the importance of data ecosystems, reviewing both ecosystem structure and dynamics. We also highlight the challenges for the trade in big data, including IP protection, regulatory complexity, pricing, the development of data agreements and privacy concerns …