The Trust Foundation Understanding trust issues in the digital era.

In response to the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, Google made a change to its landing page by adding a “privacy” link for its visitors. The California Privacy Protection Act states that a commercial website that collects personal information must link to a privacy policy from the websites homepage.

“Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie highlighted the natural tension between security and anonymity. "Increasingly the identity question is part of how we deal with trusting people, and the processes of how we manage people and their operation. Identity, and the claims around identity, are going to be critical in terms of how we find the structural balance between the privacy requirements in a given context and the security requirements."

But he also suggested that pressure for verifiable online identities won't only come from government or business. "Society will come to demand more reliable presentation of credentials and information about people in order to feel comfort, and we will see the emergence of the need for these new forms of credentialing. I think it's a natural thing, and as long as people are given the choice between having it and not having it, as a function of what they seek to gain access to, then I think we'll find a happy medium."

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy. Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.