identity

I think Jeff Jarvis has answered his own question. It is the users who should be in control of their identity, and by being in control of their identity they not only control what they want to make public, but also what degree of publicity they allow on their private data.

In order to control identity, some sort of authentication is required. Identity and Security are the bases of privacy. In order to control my privacy, I, and only I, should have access to my data and with whom I want to share it. Security and Identity management, however, are complex. I have more then 60 accounts, from mail, social network tools and sites, banks and services. About half of those account relate to my public identity. Not everyone has the means to establish their own OpenID and Oauth servers and services. It is obvious that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and twitter are all more then happy to take this role for us. While we can make a case that entrepreneurs might need a IT expertise, can we make the same case for the consumer? If we see the future as one in which the entrepreneurs and the consumer can switch roles, or even be the same, then yes, I think we should.