Update: In the first version, I mistakenly had not attributed Bob Blakley who had blogged about On “The Absurdity of Owning One’s Identity” first. My apologies.
Today’s news illustrates the limits of what I’d call the radical approach to user-centric identity: it is simply not acceptable to fully owning (an expansive version of) all of it:
Microsoft Corp. has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site.
If we took a radical approach to user-centric identity, there should be no controversy at all: Microsoft should "own" and control all information about itself, and not only should be allowed to edit all information about itself, but should be the only source of identity information about itself.
Note how ludicrous this sounds, in particular about Microsoft. I realize that one could argue that the rules are different for individuals vs. companies, and about direct identity information like name and phone number vs. the history and properties of technical features — but I don’t think it changes the picture substantially: after all, a very similar row erupted last year when congressional staffers "removed unpalatable facts from articles on senators". If the individual was the only entity through which their identity information should be made available, this would not be controversial but the expected behavior. So the radical approach to user-centric identity is not feasible in the real world.
On the other hand, it is clearly a very good idea to put more control over identity information into people’s own hands, instead of more big companies "having (safe) sex with your data", as Doc Searls put it so memorably.
Bob Blakley‘s and Phil Windley’s approach for distinguishing between identity and reputation goes a long way for solving this conundrum. Phil summarizes it well:
Identity is my story about me. Reputation is your story about me.
Applying this, the conundrum disappears: Wikipedia should be a source of other people’s information about me (or Microsoft, or senators), ie reputation information in Phil Windley’s terminology. We react so negatively because there is a perception of a conflict of interest between the subject, and their reputation. We have no problem also letting Microsoft be in complete control over their own story about themselves. When we talk about "user-centric identity" we only talk about the identity part, not the reputation part, which has to remain under control of others, otherwise public rows erupt as this example shows.
Where exactly that balance resides between identity and reputation information, and how to technically manage it, will certainly create many more interesting discussions (and controversies) to come … for now, let’s just recognize that there is a difference and who “owns” what is very different.