We want the web to be open, we want it to be social. We want exchange of data from one site to another. We want our contacts and friends around on most or even all sites. We don’t want to log in with another username and password because we have too many already anyway. We use our real names, we publish photos of ourselves, we even have our addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth online. Maybe not on all sites, but I am sure I find that data for everyone of my web-savvy friends. We do all of this for different reasons: building a reputation, branding, big egos, or we are just too enamored by the possibilities of this new web.

And Ordinary People?

Though do our co-workers, friends, families, and other people want the same? Do you know how they are using the internet? Go and ask them.

Once I explained OpenID to a co-worker. He told me that he didn’t like any single sign-on system. His example was Deutsche Telekom where different services are accessible with a single password. Well, I’m not quite sure how it works and which services are affected because I’m not a Deutsche Telekom customer but I guess, it’s similar to Google where users have access to Gmail, Google Reader, and other Google properties with the same username and password. Anyway, he thought that single sign-on, even within the same company, was not acceptable. Also he thought it was a very bad idea that any webservice, e.g. Google Profiles, an OpenID provider,…, would store many personal information like addresses, date of birth and much more. He was horrified by the idea that this information was transferrable to other sites, that complete address books could be exchanged.

Other people I talked to shared similar sentiments. Basically, they feel rather uncomfortable with publishing personal information on the web. Also many of them are getting unwanted promotional mails and phone calls already. So they fear their data could be sold again. Are these just cultural differences to North American people? Don’t they get it? Or don’t we have ordinary people in mind when talking about the open web?