Yeah, 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

Yeah, 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.)