• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, July 31, 2013

Companies need to create new revenue streams by making data the product.  UnboundID suggests a business model that provides confirmed information about customers to companies as a service, and offers consumers a way to manage and control their identity. UnboundID says this business model can work if consumers remain in control of their data and trust companies to honor their choices.

The UnboundID report, "Valuing Identity in Today’s Digital World," conducted by Compass Intelligence, says using data identifying individuals who have opted in increases a consumer's profile value by up to 100 times when compared with aggregated, anonymous data. The study polled more than one thousand digital-savvy adults in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

UnboundID defines digital identity as one individual, not a group or audience segment. The identity combines name, address, age; social network connections; pictures and videos online; affiliations like religion and politics; relations to family and friends; location; private address book, credit scores, and more.

The study identifies the value consumers place on their data that makes up their digital identity. On average, they rate the value of information shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Google+ as between $62.79 and $106.40.

To give up the data, customers want something in return. Although they expect  brands to act on that information, many don't understand what social sites, search engines, and brands do with the data they put online. While 51% of respondents said they want the brand to use their digital identify to improve the experience, about 60% believe Facebook and Twitter sell data to advertisers, and 54% think search engines sell data to advertisers and others.

Company executives participating in the survey said they would pay up to $124 per contact for accurate individual data. The research study also provides insight into how companies can value their customers' data, and ways companies can use the data for economic benefits.

The study suggests companies can gain value from digital identity data by lowering the cost of identifying their customers, which currently runs more than $12.4 billion annually in total. One way is to reduce the time it takes to identify a caller -- on average, it took 40% of the five minutes and 44 seconds a caller spent on the phone with a call center last year in the United States.