Users' willingness to pay for web identity management systems

Abstract

Electronic services such as virtual communities or electronic commerce demand user authentication. Several more or less successful federated identity management systems have emerged to support authentication across diverse service domains in recent years. In this paper, we explore the determinants for success and failure of such systems with a focus on Germany representing one of the largest markets in Europe. To achieve this goal, we analyze the preferences and willingness to pay of prospective users by conducting a choice-based conjoint analysis. Our results indicate that users prefer simple systems where an intermediary takes care of their data. An additional market analyses confirms these findings and contradicts the assumptions of many researchers, especially in the fields of engineering and computer science, supporting systems with higher and higher levels of privacy and security.

Keywords:

• federated identity management
• identity management systems
• choice-based conjoint
• electronic commerce

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heiko Roßnagel

About the Authors

Heiko Roßnagel is Head of the Competence Team Identity Management at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Industrial Engineering. His research interests are in the areas of security, privacy, and identity management with a focus on technology development and adoption.

Jan Zibuschka

Jan Zibuschka is Senior Scientist at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Industrial Engineering. He published in several areas of economics of security, including the design of market-compliant solutions for privacy in location-based services and cost-efficient approaches for web identity management and single sign-on.

Oliver Hinz

Oliver Hinz is Professor of Electronic Markets at the TU Darmstadt. His research has been published or is forthcoming in journals like Information System Research (ISR), Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ), Journal of Marketing, Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), Decision Support Systems (DSS), Journal of Business Research (JBR), and in a number of proceedings (e.g., ICIS, ECIS, PACIS).

Jan Muntermann

Jan Muntermann is Professor of Electronic Finance and Digital Markets at Georg-August University Göttingen. His research interests include decision support systems, design science, and IT Governance, especially in the fields of E-Finance and Electronic Markets. His research appeared in Decision Support Systems (DSS), European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS), and ICIS proceedings.