The fight for identity —VRM / MyData
The first part of this series focused on the current de-facto in online business models. Designed to acquire&capture users in their proprietary silos, packaged around smooth user experience ( as long as you approve terms and conditions ). It’s a CRM ( Customer Relationship Management) based model.
The second part of the blogpost series is turning the tables with VRM ( Vendor Relationship Management ) solutions, also recognised from terms and tools like MyData or PIMS ( personal information management systems). The promise is when CRM and VRM dance magic happens!
VRM tools provide customers with both
1. independence from vendors, and
2. better ways of engaging with vendors.
People using computers should be in control of giving out information about themselves, just as they are in the physical world. If people have their own tools to both control the data and share it, the digital world would be a better place AND the user experience would be superior.
What’s the problem?
1. People are lazy — convenience eats privacy for breakfast.
If ad’s are the problem, we use adblockers. If tracking is the problem, we use private mode browsing or tor browsers or wait for businesses like Apple to help us. There are tons of businesses making more and more apps to help.
2. Businesses are not compatible.
All solutions businesses have are built around their own user account system. Ways to aquire more users, and ways to make money from the users they have. It’s too expensive and too much friction for them to change, so they fight against it.
3. Online trust is at an all time low.
Two major forces are working against trust: 1) Corporations. They care about trust and security to some extent, but their interests are not aligned with those of consumers. 2) Those [bad actors] who attack individuals and systems and will always be a step ahead of any possible security measures. As people hear more and more about data breaches, etc., they will become more distrustful. Already, many people who are not technically sophisticated take a blanket approach in which they wish to reveal nothing to anyone.
In the first blog post we saw that businesses are partnering up ( to create silos ) or then trying to become big enough ( to be a silo themselves ). If individuals are also making their own silos with using multiple VRM tools the problem we need to solve is the 5th paragraph in the Laws of Identity:
Pluralism of Operators and Technologies: A universal identity system must channel and enable the inter-working of multiple identity technologies run by multiple identity providers.
There are many companies working to solve this Identity problem and they are attracting quite a lot of money from investors to succeed. To namedrop a few Prifina, MeeCo, DigitalMe, … ( plus many more -> give me a shout and I’ll add you for Google love). The fight within identity will be between small players and the big ones. Not just Google and Facebook, but also banks, operators, insurance companies, … and their ability to renew themselves and their business models.
I believe all the companies above are missing a core element in the Human behaviour. I’ll add the same image as above once again:
I believe the core thing to solve is the way to earn trust — it needs to be just like it is in the real world. Just as it is when you walk into a restaurant, or a barber. You should not require identity, before you earn the trust.
As said in this blogposting: I have yet to meet the person who wants to register ( or install an app ).
As The Internet was built without a way to know who and what you are connecting to, is the solution to the Identity problem exactly that? Not knowing.
In the last piece of this series, I’ll open up a whole new approach to tackle the Fight for Identity online.