Federated Trust

Full Title or Meme

Where trust is needed by a community of users, one popular method is the creation of a federation of suppliers that take some action to engender trust in the members of the federation.

Context

There are three broad categories of federated trust that can be useful online:

1. A collection of equals banding together to support each other, this is often handled by a non-profit association of those parties.
2. A government mandated operation that requires trust to function, for example public school teachers are vouched by various law enforcement agencies.
3. A large enterprise that leverages its trust to provide services by third parties, for example: Ebay, Yahoo or Amazon, where payment escrow service is included.