IP: SSL Certificate "Monopoly" Bears Financial Fruit

[Lucky Green]

Enzo wrote quoting Lucky:
> > The cert shows as being issued by Equifax because Geotrust 
> purchased 
> > Equifax's root embedded in major browsers since MSIE 5 on the 
> > secondary market. (Geotrust purchased more than just the root).
> 
> This raises an interesting legal issue. Should any loss from 
> a mis-issued cert arise to a party who trusted the "Equifax" 
> brand name shown in the cert chain, but doesn't know (or want 
> to know) anything about Geotrust, who would be liable?
> 
> (Yeah, I know, any liability is usually disclaimed away, but 
> I mean: which one of the two is supposed to represent the 
> "trusted" thirt party?)

I suspect that until there is more case law related to digital
certificates, this question will be very challenging to answer.

--Lucky


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