4 ms·
It seems like a uniquely US thing to provide government services via private entities like this. I most recently ran into something similar when creating an Ap
by tempestn 4y ago
It seems like a uniquely US thing to provide government services via private entities like this. I most recently ran into something similar when creating an Apple developer account. In order to do this you need something called a "DUNS" number, which apparently everyone in the US has heard of, but which was new to me. This is a unique number that every corporate entity in the US supposedly has, but which is provided and administered by a single private corporation, which uses similar dark patterns (at least with foreign companies) to try to funnel you into signing up for their identity monitoring in order to get the number you need. It kind of boggles my mind that the problem is, "need unique identifier for every corporation operating in country", and the answer is, "farm that off to a private company so they can do marketing off it".
- chrismcb 4y agoDUNS is not a government thing. The US government does have a unique number, it is your tax ID number. Typically called an EIN, but it is not farmed out to a third party What you are referring to is a private company trying to create a global id. It sounds like most banking institutions what you to have it. But it isn't required. I've never heard of it, and I've established companies in America.
- tempestn 4y agoYeah, I realize it isn't a government thing, guess I phrased that poorly. What I'm saying is that it's something that one would expect to be a government thing: a unique corporate identifier than can be shared with third parties. In Canada that's the "business number". But in the US everyone uses this thing created by a random company instead. (Presumably because the IRS doesn't provide some kind of verification system attached to the EIN.)
- gabrielsroka 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Universal_Numbering_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Universal_Numbering_Syste... Dun & Bradstreet