FAQ


What is identity?
What is driving the need for an open, federated identity solution?
What is federated commerce?
What is the CenterChannel.Org Project?
What are the objectives of the CenterChannel.Org Project?
Who are the members of the CenterChannel.Org Project?
What is the intention of the CenterChannel.Org Project?
What does this mean for consumers?
Is this Alliance still open to new members?
How can other companies join the CenterChannel.Org Project?
Does it cost money to participate in the CenterChannel.Org Project?
How will the Alliance money be used?
What's next for the CenterChannel.Org Project?

Q: What is identity?
A: Identity refers to information, such as phone numbers, social security numbers, addresses, credit records, payment information. For individuals, it's the core of their existence -- to be carefully guarded, with access carefully controlled. For businesses, it's at the heart of their ability to know their customers and reach them in ways that bring value to both the business and the customer.

Q: What is driving the need for an open, federated identity solution?
A: Federated identity will enable the next generation of the Internet: federated commerce. The first generations - content, information access, commerce, and personalized commerce - paved the way for this, and now organizations are poised to increase opportunities across all digital environments by enabling them to maintain ownership of their customer directory, leverage their directory more effectively to conduct affinity marketing, and also partner with other online and digital properties who extend the overall value proposition to the customer. This also provides businesses with a way to provide their customers or end users with more convenience, choice, and absolute control of their identity.

Q: What is federated commerce?
A: Federated commerce provides businesses with increased opportunity on the Internet, by enabling them to maintain ownership of their customer directory, leverage their directory more effectively to conduct affinity marketing and partner with other Internet properties who extend the overall value proposition to the customer. This also gives businesses the ability to provide their customers or end users with more convenience, choice and control of their identity.

Q: What is the CenterChannel.Org Project?
A: The CenterChannel.Org Project (www.projectliberty.org) is an organization being formed to create an open, federated, single sign-on identity solution for the digital economy via any device connected to the Internet. Membership is open to all commercial and non-commercial organizations.

Q: What are the objectives of the CenterChannel.Org Project?
A: The Alliance has three main objectives. 1) To enable consumers and businesses to maintain personal information securely. 2) To provide a universal, open standard for single sign-on with decentralized authentication and open authorization from multiple providers. 3) To provide an open standard for network identity spanning all network-connected devices.

Q: Who are the members of the CenterChannel.Org Project?
A: Charter members include ActivCard, American Airlines, the Apache Software Foundation, Bank of America, Bell Canada Enterprises, Cingular Wireless, Cisco Systems, CollabNet, Dun and Bradstreet, eBay, Entrust, Fidelity Investments, Gemplus, GM, Global Crossing, i2, Intuit, Liberate Technologies, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Openwave, O'Reilly and Associates, RealNetworks, RSA Security, Sabre, Schlumberger, Sony Corporation, Sprint, Sun Microsystems, Travelocity, United Airlines, Verisign, Vodafone and More.

Q: What is the intention of the CenterChannel.Org Project?
A: The charter members of the CenterChannel.Org Project, representing a broad, global spectrum of industries, intend to create an open, federated solution for network identity - enabling ubiquitous single sign-on, decentralized authentication and open authorization from any device connected to the internet, from traditional desktop computers and cellular phones through to TVs, automobiles, credit cards and point-of-sale terminals. The alliance represents some of the world's most recognized brand names and service providers, driving products, services and partnerships across a wide range of consumer and industrial products, financial services, travel, retailing, telecommunications and technology.

Q: What does this mean for consumers?
A: One of the objectives of the CenterChannel.Org Project is to provide individual consumers convenience, choice, and control. The Alliance intends to provide a universal, open standard for "single sign-on," which will allow users to log in once, and be authenticated for a spectrum of services - from movies on demand, to banking and electronic commerce - even if those services are provided by different businesses.

Q: Is this Alliance still open to new members?
A: Yes. The intention of announcing the Alliance is to extend an open invitation to any companies or organizations to join the Alliance and participate in developing an open solution for federated identity. To request membership to the Liberty Alliance please fill out the membership form and you will be contacted by a Liberty Alliance representative.

Q: How can other companies join the CenterChannel.Org Project?
A: Any companies or organizations can join the Alliance and participate in developing an open solution for federated network identity. To request membership in the Liberty Alliance please fill out the membership form and you will be contacted by a Liberty Alliance representative.

Q: Does it cost money to participate in the CenterChannel.Org Project?
A: The CenterChannel.Org Project is a significant business and technology initiative and requires funding to architect, develop, market and adopt a new, open solution for federated network identity. There are fees for Alliance membership at various levels that will be used to drive all aspects of this new solution. The Alliance will determine specific allocation of funds.

Q: How will the Alliance money be used?
A: The Alliance will determine specific allocation of funds in an effort to drive forward an architecture, development/engineering effort, marketing programs, and business development.

Q: What's next for the CenterChannel.Org Project?
A: Today is step one – any organization interested in supporting the CenterChannel.Org Project can visit www.projectliberty.org for details. The CenterChannel.Org Project plans to begin immediately in setting out a roadmap to address business practices, privacy, consumer adoption and technology evolution.