Identity and Reputation

From InternetIdentityWorkshop

Project Description

Dave Chiu presented RentAThing: Reputation as Currency during this session. The slides are available in the RentAThing photoset on Flickr.

RentAThing is a tool for negotiation that provides additional information about the reputation of the parties involved and enables smoother transactions. Instead of silos of reputation, with various services, companies, and individuals developing isolated reputations, "RentAThing" provides a centralized means of managing and developing a single reputation: "your" reputation.

As you go through life, you acquire a reputation. Do you pay your bills on time? How do you treat library books? Do you forget to return money you've borrowed? This reputation affects your ability to gain access to things and services. In the future, with spimes and smart objects as actors in a world of ubiquitous information, your objects could be rented to anyone at any time. Gaining access to those objects could be as simple as having a great reputation.

Session topic

This project was developed as a theoretical exploration of what might be possible given a tool for tracking reputation. I presented this project at IIW2006B as a means for sparking conversation around the social implications of this technology. As is obvious from the RentAThing presentation, behavior change is a critical part of any new system: I don't currently rent my car out to complete strangers, and this behavior will not change simply because we've enabled these kinds of transactions.