The “You First” Pledge
Here’s an idea obvious so obvious that it’s either been done or there’s a good reason why it hasn’t been done.
My worry about digital ID is that even with the most user-centered technology — the sort that Eric and Doc are pushing — inevitably users will be faced with a Hobson’s choice: Although the technology allows us to release only the ID information we choose, in order to do business with them vendors will insist that we give them more information than we want to. Technology that gives us control isn’t enough. We also need a marketplace that lets us exercise that control.
So, suppose vendors were encouraged to agree to a set of statements such as these:
| The “You First” Digital ID Pledge |
| 1. Your digital ID is yours. You own it. Only you get to decide who knows what about you.
2. To do business with us, you need only give us the minimum information required to complete the transaction. 3. If we then want more information about you, we will explain clearly what we want, why we want it, what we will do with it, how it benefits you, and any ways it might not benefit you. 4. We recognize that if providing us with additional information benefits us, we need to compensate you for that information in some way that we both freely agree on. 5. We respect your privacy absolutely. We will never share what we know of you with anyone else without your explicit (“opt-in”) permission. |
If you agree to this, you get to put this button on your site that, of course, links to a web page that explains the details.
What do you think?
Note: This idea came up in the course of an interesting correspondence with Jonathan Peterson, although this doesn’t imply that Jonathan agrees with it.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
When I saw the phrase “You First” I thought of something different. I don’t want some corporation to pledge to put my first, most of them already do that, “Your Way, Any Way”, “You are priority number one”, etc, etc, and its bullshit.
I like the idea of “You First”, in the sense of what it meant on the playground, back in elementary school. All show you mine, if you show me yours, but, um, you first.
If a business wants detailed information about me, I want detailed information about them, if they can look at my credit rating, I want to be able to look at their budget, if they know my home info, I want the more info of their officers, if they know my spending habits, I want to know how they spend their money, including who and where they buy their products from, who and why they lobby, and finally I want access to what other citizens are saying about them.
That is what “You First” means to me.
Especially #4 David – this raises ‘us’ to the level of the customer, from the dregs of consumerism. If a business wishes to have one’s custom, they might need to consider micropayments to make that attractive enough for transactions to occur. One problem with DigID as currently imagined is that it still looks at things largely from the perspective of corporate broadcast ideologies.
I think you’re right.
It is simple. It is obvious.
More importantly to me, I think it’s right – it’s clear and fair – a fresh hit of clarity in a world of angles and jockeying for position.
It would work. Will it work, or is it too fair?
The government wouldn’t be allowed to use this would they?
I don’t know if you recognize how US focused the Pledge is. Two thoughts here
First off, not many people outside the US actually understand cultural overtones of this. What is the pledge, why pledge etc. (I myself have only a slight idea).
Second, the statements of the pledge are very similar to the data protection principles in place Europe, Canada and Australia. Many people outside the US the question would wonder what’s the big deal, if half of the world has already agreed on this.
…and therefore subject to the same problem that the European legislation is subject to – to get anything done, you have to sign up (in the very small print) to allowing your data to be moved out of the EEA and therefore outside the protection of the law.
So the hard bit is not writing the pledge – which seems perfectly reasonable – but creating the conditions in which companies find it commercially advantageous to use it. There is no evidence that hypersensitive souls who care about the privacy of their data add up to a proportion of the market sufficient to swing this except in some very niche areas. We might wish it to be otherwise, but that isn’t enough to change it.
David,
http://www.henshall.com/blog/archives/000181.html#000181
I’m the boss of my in-box! IOWNME — please don’t forget it.
A few years ago, my two year-old was throwing a tantrum. “You’re not the boss of me!” “You’re not the boss of me!” he screamed with absolute determination on his face. The first dawning of an independent personality, he was exploring the limits, the boundaries. This was a little different to the playful fun he had when he discovered his shadow. His shadow follows him everywhere today, much longer than those many years ago.
Like our children, many of us remain in the physical world, still to discover or even feel the need to declare our independence in the digital world. It was brought home to me again, how untrained most of us are and how confusing the parallels are. The understanding we learn in the physical world as our persona emerges learning by trial and error fails to emerge or automatically transition to the online world. Instead this foreign digital world runs agents, applications, and protocols. When we struggle it’s the technology, or systems management we are told it’s for the best. It’s not friendly or caring, you wouldn’t let your friends treat you like an infant and yet too many online organizations do everyday. How often can one scream online “Your not the boss of me!”? Yet from Microsoft to Double-click, they are all trying to be the boss of you! What’s more they want to keep it that way.
This is an introduction to IOWNME! Why it is timely and why it is different. Like the two year old – IOWNME learns from lessons and exchanges with others. IOWNME is your right to assert your digital persona, to control access to you, to tell your story, not theirs in a distinctly individual way
ID Idealism
I just logged in to Mitch’s blog and am pleased to see he’s taken up the charge again with “The Digital ID Pledge”. I liked this statement: “The individual ID idealism is the nut of a new way of interacting…