How do identity providers make money?
Nov 27th, 2007 by Aswath
In preparation of Internet Identity Workshop, Johannes Ernst is soliciting discussion questions. One of the sample questions he poses is “How do identity providers make money?” He goes on to state that, “The answer is very much still in the air.” ID providers like Vidoop have some plans because they plan to offer some rewards to their affiliates. Though I do not have any official details on their plans, one could guess that it is displaying ads as part of the pictures they display during the authentication process. Here I am suggesting an additional source of revenue. As we do in EnThinnai, identity can be used to enforce a whitelist. But then there will be times when we would like to deal with a person outside of the whitelist. So consider the case of B not in the whitelist of A. In this case, A can demand and B can post a bond to circumvent the whitelist filter. After the initial contact, if A is satisfied, A can release the bond. For this service the ID provider can charge a service fee to B. This will be a way to put some weight behind the current level of authentication.