Online Identifiers in Everyday Life
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© 2010 by Benjamin M. Gross. All rights reserved. ONLINE IDENTIFIERS IN EVERYDAY LIFE BY BENJAMIN M. GROSS DISSERTATION Submied in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Library and Information Science in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Commiee: Associate Professor Michael Twidale, Chair Professor Geof Bowker, University of Pisburgh Professor Chip Bruce Associate Professor Ann Bishop Abstract Identifiers are an essential component of online communication. Email addresses and instant messenger usernames are two of the most common online identi- fiers. is dissertation focuses on the ways that social, technical and policy fac- tors affect individual’s behavior with online identifiers. Research for this dissertation was completed in two parts, an interview-based study drawn from two populations and an examination of the infrastructure for managing identifiers in two large consumer services. e exploratory study ex- amines how individuals use online identifiers to segment and integrate aspects of their lives. e first population is drawn from employees of a financial ser- vice firm with substantial constraints on communication in the workplace. e second population is drawn from a design firm with minimal constraints on com- munication. e two populations provide the opportunity to explore the social, technical, and policy issues that arise from diverse communication needs, uses, strategies, and technologies. e examination of systems focuses on the infras- tructure that Google and Yahoo! provide for individuals to manage their iden- tifiers across multiple services, and the risks and benefits of employing single sign-on systems. is research contributes to our understanding of the ways that identifiers shape online self-representation and communication. Specifically,interview data high- light the ways in which individuals’ preferences for the creation and manage- ment of identifiers conflict with external factors. ese conflicts lead to frustra- tion, arbitrary decisions, and complicated management issues. is thesis con- cludes with recommendations for system designers and policy implementers. ii Acknowledgements I am grateful to the many individuals that helped to shape my research in both large and small ways. I would like to single out the following individuals for their intellectual and logistical contributions to my research. I would first like to thank my current commiee members Michael Twidale, Geof Bowker, Chip Bruce, and Ann Bishop for their phenomenal support and advice in guiding me through the PhD process and for their criticism that greatly im- proved my work. My former advisors and commiee members Leigh Estabrook, Les Gasser, Bruce Schatz, and Susan Leigh Star all made significant contribu- tions to my work. I would also like to thank Christena Nippert-Eng at the Illinois Institute of Technology for her unwavering encouragement and numerous intel- lectual contributions. In the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dean John Unsworth, Rae-Anne Montague, Linda Smith and the administrative staff Dorlene Clark, Sally Eakin, Kathy Painter, and Valerie Youngen made it possible to navigate through the university bureaucracy. I am fortunate to have many friends and colleagues with whom I could discuss my work. Alan Braverman, Michael Buckland, Elizabeth Churchill, Rachna Dhamija, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Steve Griffin, Susan Harum, Sarah Horton, David Jeske, Nalini Kotamraju, Peter Merholz, Dan Pape, Warren Sack, Paul Sas, Jeff Ubois, and Bill Woodcock all made significant contributions to my PhD. I would like to say a special thank you to Michal Weber for her advice, encouragement, and nudges pointing me towards graduation. ank you to my family for patiently seeing me through the whole process. iii Table of Contents List of Tables ................................. vii List of Figures . viii Chapter 1 Introduction .......................... 1 1.1 Purpose of is Study ........................ 1 1.2 Background of the Problem ..................... 2 1.3 Identity and Identifiers ....................... 2 1.4 Identifiers and Namespaces ..................... 3 1.5 Email Addresses and Instant Messenger IDs ............ 3 1.6 Social Network Service Identifiers ................. 4 1.7 Scope of the Study .......................... 5 1.8 Research Questions .......................... 6 Chapter 2 Literature Review ....................... 7 2.1 Role and Identity ........................... 7 2.2 Controlling Access .......................... 9 2.3 Reducing Cognitive Overhead .................... 10 2.4 Rhythms, Time, and Place ...................... 11 2.5 Email Standards ........................... 12 2.6 Accounts, Security and Phishing .................. 13 2.7 Surveys of Online Communication ................. 16 2.8 Overview of Modern Online Identifiers ............... 17 2.8.1 From ARPANET to NSFNET to the internet ........ 18 2.8.2 Electronic Mail ........................ 20 2.8.3 UUCP and USENET ...................... 21 2.8.4 BITNET ............................ 23 2.8.5 Social Networks ....................... 23 2.8.6 Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Virtual Worlds . 26 2.8.7 Instant Messaging and Presence .............. 29 2.8.8 Twier ............................ 30 Chapter 3 Methods ............................. 32 3.1 Overview of Methods ........................ 32 3.2 Analytical Frameworks and Contributions ............. 33 3.3 Populations .............................. 34 3.4 Sampling and Contact Process .................... 34 3.5 Financial Service Professionals ................... 34 3.6 Design Professionals ......................... 35 3.7 Analysis of Production Services ................... 35 3.8 Methodological Limitations ..................... 36 iv Chapter 4 Findings from Interviews ................... 37 4.1 Demographics of Populations .................... 37 4.2 Overview of Influences ........................ 37 4.3 Social and Personal Influences on Identifiers ............ 40 4.3.1 Managing Presentation of Self ............... 40 4.3.2 Personal Branding ...................... 47 4.3.3 Integration .......................... 49 4.4 Technical and Infrastructure Influences on Identifiers ...... 51 4.4.1 Namespace Saturation .................... 53 4.4.2 Address Books and Identity ................. 54 4.4.3 Addressing and Identity ................... 55 4.4.4 Email Headers and eir Implications ........... 58 4.4.5 Confusion En Masse: Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) ...... 61 4.4.6 Retrieval and Organization in Email Collections ...... 64 4.5 Policy and Regulatory Influences on Identifiers .......... 65 4.6 Security Considerations ....................... 66 4.6.1 Technical Implementations of Policy ............ 68 4.6.2 Identity and Access Control ................. 71 4.6.3 Compliance Systems, Tradeoffs and Risk .......... 73 Chapter 5 Common Systems for Managing Identifiers . 75 5.1 Google Accounts and Google Namespaces ............. 76 5.1.1 Google Accounts Without Gmail .............. 77 5.1.2 Google Accounts With Gmail ................ 77 5.1.3 Google Apps Accounts .................... 79 5.1.4 Google Groups ........................ 82 5.1.5 Other Google Services .................... 83 5.2 Yahoo! Accounts ........................... 89 5.3 Single Sign-On: Benefits and Risks ................. 94 5.4 OpenID Authentication ....................... 95 5.5 OAuth and Delegated Authorization ................ 96 5.6 Future Developments for OpenID and OAuth ............ 98 Chapter 6 Discussion . 100 6.1 Design Implications ......................... 100 6.2 Address Books Mediate Identity ................... 100 6.3 Phone Numbers as Identifiers .................... 104 6.4 Mitigating problems with BCCs and Reply to All .......... 109 6.5 Web-Based Sign-Ins ......................... 110 6.6 Compliance Systems and Workarounds ............... 113 6.7 Namespace Speculation ....................... 115 6.8 Namespace Collisions ........................ 116 6.9 Automatic Configuration ...................... 117 Chapter 7 Conclusions and Future Work . 121 7.1 Conclusions .............................. 121 7.1.1 Social Factors ......................... 122 7.1.2 Technical Factors ....................... 123 7.1.3 Policy Factors ......................... 124 7.1.4 Lifecycle of Identifiers .................... 126 7.2 Future Work ............................. 127 7.2.1 Improving Web-based Sign Ins ............... 127 7.2.2 Identifier Lifecycle and Namespace Valuation ....... 128 References .................................. 130 v Appendix A Interview Guide . 143 A.1 Basic Demographic Information ................... 143 A.2 General Questions .......................... 143 A.3 Your First Email Address and Instant Messenger Username ... 144 A.4 Uses of Identifiers .......................... 145 A.5 Addressing, Address Books and Buddy Lists ............ 145 A.6 Regulation .............................. 147 A.7 Access Control ............................ 148 A.8 Search and Organization ....................... 148 Appendix B Description of Interview Codes . 149 B.1 Access Control ............................ 149 B.2 Additional Communication Channels ................ 149 B.3 Addressing and Address Books ................... 149 B.4 Affiliation, Status and Prestige ................... 150 B.5 Cognitive Overload .......................... 150 B.6 Communication Channel Selection ................. 150 B.7 Control Aention and Availability ................. 151 B.8 Desiring an Identifier