Civic Is Turning Identity.com Into a Crypto-Powered Personal Data Market

That's Vinny Lingham, co-founder and CEO of the blockchain identity startup Civic, talking about the company's acquisition of "Identity.com" - a fitting web domain for a company built around the idea of putting personally identifiable data in the control of its owners.

Rather than one company selling data about its users directly to another firm, the first company that can verify data would share that attestation with the user, who would then share it with the second firm that needs the information.

The blockchain allows the company receiving the information to verify that the attestation held by the consumer is legitimate.

Many different companies might be able to, for example, verify that a specific user has a valid driver's license, but other companies might have different levels of trust in each other.

Identity.com will be a place for companies to set up relationships and have a means to tell consumers whose attestations they will trust.

The token will be the method by which requesting companies pay for validation from companies that have the information.

Smart contracts are used to protect everyone during the transaction, ensuring that validators only get paid once requesting companies have received adequate information.

Identity.com is expected to start directing traffic to a Civic-controlled website as of 22:00 UTC. According to Lingham, the domain will play host to a business-to-business marketplace for companies looking to sell attestations about individuals and the companies seeking to verify information about their customers.

Civic will be one of the companies in the Identity.com marketplace - but it hopes to be one of many.

Lingham positioned the domain acquisition as a major step for not just his company but the development of a "Web 3.0".