Me2B Alliance Intro

Me2B Alliance Introduction

Wednesday 10B

Convener: Lisa LeVasseur

Notes-taker(s): Carolyn Tacket

Tags for the session - technology discussed/ideas considered:

Consumer trust, supplier certification, consumer education

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:

Check out the deck!

Vision Statement – room prefers option A

 

Intention is not to reinvent the wheel — consolidating existing specs to create a unified certification

Integration of accessibility across all categories

 

Not the tech itself, but a question of business models as well as design and UX

 

Basic education about the cert but also about what the harms are:

- What does it mean when a vendor is sharing my data with a vendor broker?

- Translating tech and legal terms to consumers so they have a better sense of the choices and what’s at stake

 

How to strategically influence the policy and regulatory landscape

Consider it a trade association

 

What comes across is piecemeal, particularly in regulatory processes — it is really powerful to bring all the considerations together

 

Useful to small vendors to not have to explain what’s different about it from Day One. Creates a showcase and establishes that alternatives are possible, which opens the door to the market.

 

Unified vocabulary is absolutely necessary to move forward

 

Standards aren’t looking at users or usability at all, this is a big departure from that. Creating a user panel for testing.

 

Code of Practice / self-certification first. Interoperability eventually down the road. Then following that with consumer outreach.

 

Engineers are conditioned to data monetization business models. But there are entrepreneurs who are ethically aligned starving for capital. Funding aspect has its own life cycle and need for leadership, but is essential for the overall success of the project.

 

Code of Practice has to be founded in shared principles.

What are some shared examples of when you have switched from a bad actor to a good actor and why?

 

Possibility of collaboration with B Corporation

Brand recognition is the value add to companies, but a network of certified companies is the value to consumers. Chicken and the egg at the initiation phase.

 

Important element is educating businesses how to do it right

 

Making money on data isn’t inherently evil. But need to be transparent about how it’s happening. And consumers need to be empowered between getting their services through subsidized and non-subsidized alternatives.

 

This is inherently a marketing service for companies

Simplifying this, especially in the first round, will make it more usable for suppliers. Need buy-in on a set of principles.

Enforcement mechanism is bad press

 

Nobody knows how to ask questions about privacy for third-party plug-ins – something like this would be helpful in an enterprise setting

Effort to get on vendor evaluation checklists

 

Trying to certify at least 10 suppliers by the end of this year

 

Me2Balliance.org à sign up for the mailing list if you’re interested

 

Important understand the timeline of having a full universe of certified suppliers that would make it possible for someone to be fully Me2B certified

 

Important to prioritize the consumer education piece àcertification needs to be meaningful to everyday people. Needs consumer-driven demand to be the pull-through.

Encourage coordination with organizations like EFF, EPIC, Access Now, etc.