oh yes, as to the other kinds of certificates. basically this is an issue of trust establishment. there are various forms of trust establishment, advertisement, brand, word-of-mouth, previous history, etc ... not just BBB or consumer report like stuff. Transactions are highly skewed ... with the majority of transactions having some form of trust establishment not needing BBB, consumer report, etc. (i.e. previous history, brand, etc) on the internet, for the minority of transaction w/o other forms of trust establishment and which would benefit from a BBB, consumer report, etc solution ... there can actually be two approaches: 1) offline paradigm; certificates are offline paradigm solution ... they've been manufactored at some time in the past with potentially out-of-date and/or really stale information. 2) online paradigm; a BBB, consumer report, etc online web site that gives up-to-date, real-time information about a merchant. these would be well-known web-sites and merchants could even have buttons that take the consumer to such a web-site. Some number of the certification, licensing, & trust organizations have actually expressed preference for the online paradigm, in part because it creates a tighter bound with the consumer, they have better tracking of consumer reliance on their services, and the information provided is current & up-to-date.