Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...

[Lynn.Wheeler at firstdata.com]

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manufactored at some time in the past with potentially out-of-date and/or really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.