docs/content/concepts/terminology.md

---
title: Terminology
description: Terminology specific to Ocean Protocol.
---

## Asset or Data Asset

A data set or data service.

## Data Owner or Data Service Provider

Someone who has assets that they want to sell (or give away freely). An example is an almond distributor with 30 years of data about almond sales.

Note: Initially, most data owners or data service providers will also be the publishers of their own assets.

## Publisher

A service which mediates access to assets on behalf of data owners or data service providers.

Note: Initially, most publishers will also be the owners of the data assets they publish.

## Consumer

Someone who wants assets. An example is a data scientist working at an economic think tank.

## Marketplace

A service where publishers can list what assets they have, and consumers can see what's available then buy it (or get it for free). The Ocean network supports many marketplaces/tribes.

## Verifier

A person or a software service that checks some steps in transactions. For example, a verifier might check to see if a cryptographic signature is valid and then get rewarded for doing so.

## Service Execution Agreement (SEA)

A contract-like agreement between a provider, a consumer, and a verifier, specifying what data assets are to be delivered (from provider to consumer), the conditions that must be met, and the rewards for fulfilling the conditions.

We published an [Ocean Protocol blog post that explains SEAs in more detail](https://blog.oceanprotocol.com/exploring-the-sea-service-execution-agreements-65f7523d85e2).

## More Terminology

See the page about Ocean's [Software Components](/concepts/components/).