How do blind people gain trust and authenticity signals from content they engage with online? This fundamental question reveals a critical gap in our digital infrastructure – one that affects everyone's safety and security online.
SWOT (Simplified Web of Trust) offers an elegant solution: a simple chain of custodianship that allows legitimate businesses to demonstrate their authenticity without tracking people. By focusing on verifying commercial entities rather than collecting personal data, SWOT makes the web safer for everyone, especially those using assistive technologies.
An approach is built on some key principles:
Designed for the blind first - not an afterthought
Privacy by design - Permitting the identification of businesses not people
Pre-connection verification - trust signals before engagement
Network effects - legitimate businesses supporting each other
Ubiquity and equity - Multilingual, cultural and fair
Trust, or lack of it, is a cumulative network effect influenced by many minor actions. The majority of online fraud and misinformation is facilitated unwittingly by a remarkably small number of actors. By making legitimate relationships verifiable, SWOT helps break these patterns and harms.
This isn't just about technology – it's about implementing standards that improve web accessibility and site verification for everyone. Simple changes that work as well in the global south as in the global north. As Sir Tim Berners-Lee said, "This is for everyone."
There are bigger problems to fix in the world. A simplified web of trust removes distractions, reduces harm, and eliminates waste on the journey to address them.
Making informed decisions should be within the capacity of everyone.
This is an enhancement of WHOIS but in DNS.
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