Where's the Virtual Upright Wheelchair?

Okay, so I don't get that title either, probably because I missed the first few minutes of Esther's introduction. (Thrifty Rent-a-Car made the mistake of upgrading me to a PT Cruiser Convertible. Could anyone resist tooling around Southern California freeways this morning? I think not.)

Resident bloggers are also a little constrained this morning from reporting at PC Forum because the wireless network is down. I just figured out what kinds of location contortions I needed to go through to get a Verizon Wireless EVDO signal in the La Costa ballroom, though, so I'm finally able to post.

The morning's first session is focused on user control - or lack of control - of their data. Several startups each offered their own approach to intermediating between individuals and people who want to pay to have their data.

TrustedID. Co-founder Scott Mitic says his company gives consumers the ability to say yes or no before credit data about themselves gets sold. A former VP at Fair Isaac, a credit reporting agency, wants to “catalyze consumers to want to have more control over their identities.” Obviously, the big three reporting agencies respond to his approach by saying, “Over my dead body.” His response: Then stop selling data to support fraud. In fact, Mitic says, since the credit services are making an average of $4 per person in their databases, “I may be happier to pay Equifax to keep them from selling my data for fraudulent purposes.” Goldstein says that 12 states have laws today that say consumers can control their data, and there’s a federal law under discussion. Esther questioned if there’s any way for TrustedID to stop “friends & family fraud,” which Mitic says is about 15-30% of all identity fraud. He confessed there’s no great way to stop, say, a spouse from bad acting – but his system does ask lots of personal questions a spouse might not be able to answer. Why does he think he has a business? 10 million people are paying $100/year to monitor their credit - but not protect it. “The system is broken right now,” Mitic says. “The 3 credit bureaus are selling information that can be used with fraud. Their incentive is to maximize the sale of your data. Somewhere in that system there has to be an advocate for the consumer.”

RootMarkets. CEO Seth Goldstein quoted venture capitalist John Doerr, who made the distinction between mercenary entrepreneurs vs. missionary entrepreneurs. The mercenary part of his initiative is Root Markets, which sells consumer data such as marketing leads, intending to share the value it receives with those individuals. For example, a mortgage lead would come from an individual or a broker, and a Countrywide or a Wells Fargo would buy it. That lead is worth $20-25 the first time, and can be worth $80 once it’s passed several reviews, says Goldstein. But unlike many current plays that use mashups or other Web 2.0 processes to aggregate and empower, “…it’s decidedly Web 1.0,” says Goldstein. The missionary part of his focus comes from AttentionTrust.org, a foundation providing a Firefox add-in that lets users look at their own data about their Web viewing, and potentially offer that information to others. But do consumers really want to manage their own data? “Increasingly…I as an individual want to know what all these companies know about me.” Though this year we’re talking about data ownership, he predicted that next year we’re going to be talking about deletion: If you have information about me, I want you to get rid of it.

 

Opinity. CEO Ted Cho says his company makes some aspects of user reputation portable across sites. “People think that we pull in the reputation and make that portable. But we just pull in the ID, and let users figure out what that means,” he says. But isn’t identity very contextual based on the site it comes from? Slashdot may be, he said, but EBay reputation is actually fairly portable. In audience questioning, privacy expert Mary Hodder disagreed, saying that EBay reputation is routinely gamed by sellers, who ask for high ratings as a tax on a transaction.

Audience questioning repeatedly came back to the "unintended consequences" of federal identity legislation, and the kinds of challenges that could come depending on how much clueless politicians miss the boat. There's no easy solution, of course, unless you have a large, noisy group of lobbyists in your pocket.

gB

Comments

[Gary Dennis]

When the TrustedID solution was introduced, there was already a patent pending technology out there for total management of identity by the identity owner.

There are four major differences in this system, called iDovos, and the TrustedID solution.

1. iDovos is designed from the ground up to permit owner control of all identity assets. The system permits individuals to turn assets (credit cards, accounts, and personal credit) on and off at the will of the owner A credit card can be turned off as easily as access to a brokerage account.

2. iDovos stores no use-enabling data. Nothing in the database can be used to defraud or harm the individual. Not even a name is stored by the system. No zip codes, phone numbers, birth dates, etc... nothing.

3. iDovos operates in real time. Assets are immediately enabled and disabled. You can turn any asset on or off using a cell phone or web browser. See www.idovos.com for complete details.

4. Registration of identity assets with iDovos includes the identity asset holder of record (credit card company for example) in the custody chain. You cannot "game" the system until you have gamed the systems of the asset holders, i.e., it is not possible to register an asset unless you already have account level access to the asset.

Forget for the moment that their execution is flawed, many thanks to TrustedID for generating needed attention to the importance of personally managed identity.