Yes, it is that simple! A person can still have their screen name. If one want to be known as 69Nazi420 online, that is fine, but to register the 69Nazi420 “online identity” one would have sign up with a “real identity” that includes ones first and last name, street address, phone number, and a credit card issued under that name, at that street address.

There could be a minimal charge for an “online identity,” say $3 per year. The company that sells you your online identity would then register that identity with ICANN. ICANN would keep a register of all online identities and which company was acting as the identity provider for that identity.

How would this work in real life you ask… So, for example, if one bought an online identity from Google, when one went to sign up with Facebook, one would enter their screen name and Facebook would look it up in the ICANN regisrty. If the online identity existed ICANN would tell Facebook which company was acting as identity provider and Facebook would open a popup window so that the person creating a Facebook account could login to their identity provider and verify their identity.

If, on the other hand, when Facebook queried ICANN no online identity was found, Facebook could offer to sell the person the online identity and Facebook would become the registered identity provider for that new online identity.

Let’s skip the traditional culture wars and wagging our jowls about free speech and whether our kids are spending too much time in front of screens. The reality is that we all live in the real world and the online world. In the real world we have birth certificates, driver licenses, passports, and credit cards that we can use when asked to identity ourselves. Civil society could not happen without these. All of the problems that we are experiencing online, we would experience in real life, if people were allowed to create as many fake identities as they wanted. Governments have been slow to recognize that online our identity is just as real, and society needs the tools to verify our online identity. This can be done via the free market using the tools that already exist online in the form of ICANN and identity providers. Everyone should be happy. Problem solved!