We're trying out new ways of saying what we do. Here's one I sent a friend this evening...

The gist of what we're up to involves returning control over people's identities to the rightful owners - the people themselves. Today, many corporations each own bits and pieces of one's identity, and buy, sell and trade this information for their profit. A huge additional expense is incurred by each of these corps in trying to keep the data accurate and up-to-date, such as when people move, etc. If the person owned the data about themselves, they could (of course) keep it up to date and loan or rent out portions of it to corps when needed, such as for a financial transaction or when they're in the market for some goods or services. Such an operation (in the Identity Commons) is governed by an electronic "link contract" that explicitly defines the terms of use (from the person to the company - not the other way around, as has become all too common). Actually, this becomes a win for all parties, as companies get better data at lower cost and people have control over who can do what with each piece of their personal profile.

And of course, all our software is free and open source.