I invited Kim Cameron to help me refine my clumsy notion of a translucent way to handle my Social Security Number in relationships with sites like Prosper.com. His response sketches out exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.
Kim concludes with a really useful analysis of why what he calls user-centric scenarios mostly don't exist yet:
In my view, the problem Jon has raised for discussion is one of a great many that have surfaced because institutions "elided" users from business interactions. One of the main reasons for this is that institutions had computers long before it could be assumed that individuals did.Great point!
It will take a while for our society to rebalance -- and even invert some paradigms -- given the fact that we as individuals are now computerized too.
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/09/27.html#a1532