Identity Management for Electronic Negotiations

Using the Internet as the medium for transporting sensitive business data poses risks to companies. Before conducting business electronically, a company should take preventive measures against data manipulations and possible data misuse. One initial step could be obtaining certainty about the true identity of a potential business partner responding to a request or tender. In this paper we report on the development of a concept for identity management to introduce trust for electronic negotiations. We describe the character of electronic negotiations and give an example for a possible use-case scenario of our concept. For this we choose the most complex type of negotiations in the business domain, which are interactive bilateral multiattributive negotiations. Based on a general application architecture for such negotiations developed in a research project, we show the necessity of security provisions and introduce a security concept for identity management. We argue that the development of authentication and authorization services for the identity management of business partners involved in a negotiation are not only crucial but also an enhancement for electronic marketplaces.