This document discusses user-centric identity and mashups in the context of web services. It notes that identity is important for personalization, authorization, and maintaining a public identity across providers, but can also be a barrier. A user-centric model provides user choice, privacy, and allows for collaboration across many applications at internet scale. Challenges include adoption due to dependencies, inconsistent user experiences, and managing permissions. The document advocates for user experience consistency, asking for user permission, supporting multiple identities and identity providers. It describes AOL's OpenAuthentication API for user identity.