I sat in on a presentation by Larry Ponemon of the privacy research institute that bears his name. With the support of CA Technologies, Larry had taken a look into “The Identity Imperative for the Open Enterprise: What IT Users & Business Users Think about Bring Your Own Identity (BYOID).”
According to the report, “in today’s application economy, organizations need to securely deliver new apps to grow their business quickly. This can increase IT risks, which puts a premium on an organization’s ability to simplify the user experience without sacrificing security. Using an existing digital or social identity issued by a trusted third party to access applications can help organizations meet the need for simplicity, security and a positive customer experience.”
And who were the trusted third party identity providers that increase confidence?
Again, according to the research, “IT users rank PayPal, Google and Amazon as their employers’ top three preferred identity providers to their organization. Business users rank Amazon Microsoft Live and PayPal as their employers’ top three identity providers.”
As I listened to the brief of statistics, segmentation and insights, it struck me what wasn’t being said: the field of online identity was being left to players building market confidence, not focused on those who already have consumer endorsement.
It is no shock that PayPal and Amazon are on both IT and business users’ lists. Both reduce engagement to a single click, each has shown, over time, a commitment to security and they’ve proved their ability to deliver value. That’s why, even in the current climate of anxiety over surveillance, Amazon, a targeting database company without peer, has our trust. It hits all the marks.
If providing online identity services is a growing market (this Gartner analysis from late last year is a good marker), why should it be left to new players. Amazon may be called the most trusted company in the U.S., but there is a small group of companies that have been on such lists far longer. This is akin to a grant of permission from consumers to offer such services. The question is: Will they?
As Amazon grows into a trusted financial partner (see: one-click commerce, smart device credit card services), there are a number of financial transaction companies like VISA, AMEX and Intuit that already live there. And what about a trusted gatekeeper like Mozilla, parent to the Firefox web browser? Or an immersion entertainment brand, like Disney? Or, as it looks for new revenue, the slow, steady and (mostly) sure U.S. Postal Service (or its flashier but equally diligent competitors, FedEx and UPS)?
There are many new business opportunities created by the Internet economy for long-standing companies. Identity management is but one. But as the market gets more crowded, noiser and complex, already having permission to act will be far more valuable than standing up a new company. Who will be first?
