Persona-comments-Todd Eskelsen Bluetooth SIG attorney

From IVP Wiki

Source: Email received April 25, 1011

On the need for a neutral, non-profit, standard-setting organization

  • I read the article and believe that it does a nice job of presenting the problem and the proposed solution which you have developed. As to my "aha moment" it came at Page 8 in the discussion about the "walled garden" and the need now to re-focus on customer-directed processes. Combined with the discussion beginning on page 22 about the stirrings of consumer discontent about the loss of control of privacy, I think the Information Valet Project makes imminent sense.
  • I also agree with you that the key to making the Information Valet process successful is the gatekeeper role played by the neutral, non-profit standard-setting organization. The key is how to get the major players to understand how it is in their interests to establish and fund the standard setting entity. Bluetooth did it with a gang of nine Founding Members who controlled and funded 95% of the process in exchange for getting their engineers, programmers, product people, etc. on all of the planning and development committees, while also having other categories open to the general technology community and even the public at little or no cost with varying levels of participation. Are there 5 - 10 big players who would do the same for the information economy?
  • Your summary of the ITA proposition was good.
  • The examples of the nine collaborations was helpful and provided concrete examples that showed the ITA collaboration should be possible (but remember I saw how Bluetooth worked and was already convinced long ago).
  • I am not sure that the Four Party model charts adequately explain the ITA process. The charts are a bit difficult to understand with the multiple arrows. It seems to me that a better way to illustrate the concept would be a picture with "Users" at the left and "WWW Information Providers" at the right and between a tall, thin oblong box labeled "ITA - authorization, privacy protection, financial payment and accounting services". Between Users and WWW Information Providers would be a large number of arrows, some of which went around the box, but some of which went through the box and had a different colored arrow coming out of the box, indicating that such users were preferred because they were authenticated and had financial resources to pay for content from the WWW Information Provide network. "Home Base Service" circles to the left of the box could indicate the concept of local home bases (e.g., local newspapers) which can provide more preferred services to both the User and the WWW Information Providers. Something like this seems to me to better illustrate the model.


Todd R. Eskelsen
SCHIFF HARDIN LLP
Washington, D.C.
TEskelsen@schiffhardin.com