[use cases] Pseudo-anonymity

During a call two weeks ago, the Pseudo-anonymity use case came up:

https://www.w3.org/Payments/IG/wiki/Use_Cases_Task_Force#Pseudo-anonymity

Two questions were asked:

1. What is this use case about?
2. Why should it be high priority?

This use case is about being able to stay anonymous wrt. the merchant
when buying something innocuous like a candy bar, E-rated video game
(suitable for everyone), or cooking oil. This coupled with the
registration-less purchases would enable people to buy things from
merchants on the Web pseudo-anonymously (their transaction processor and
law enforcement would still know who they are).

Privacy on the Web is a pretty hot topic these days and I don't think
this group is going to be able to avoid the debate.

We've been having fairly detailed discussions about this in the Web
Payments CG:

https://web-payments.org/minutes/2014-09-10/#59

and it's a topic of concern in the Credentials CG:

http://opencreds.org/specs/source/use-cases/#pseudo-anonymity

I think this group should rate this use case as high priority because:

1) Privacy wrt. the merchant is important when performing certain types
   of purchases (pregnancy tests, adult content purchases, etc.)
2) By not supporting the use case, we're (by default) supporting the
   tracking of everything across both merchants and transaction
   processors. Consumer rights groups will have a field day with us
   if we don't protect people's privacy.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: The Marathonic Dawn of Web Payments
http://manu.sporny.org/2014/dawn-of-web-payments/

Received on Monday, 19 January 2015 04:20:02 UTC