The case for service provider anonymity

While the majority of the research on anonymity is focused on individuals, there is an increasing number of scenarios that demand anonymity for service providers as well. For example, in many business to consumer (B2C) scenarios, service providers sell their surplus to individuals for lower prices through arbitrageurs. Those service providers must remain anonymous, to avoid discouraging customers from buying directly from the service provider, at the regular price. Some providers wish to be anonymous for various reasons, including but not limited to, escaping denial of service attacks and avoiding censorship. Enabling service providers to prove relations to other providers is also needed in business to business (B2B) scenarios. This paper shows that allowing service providers to act as individuals in privacy preserving systems does not fulfill the job. The paper describes a system that allows individuals and service providers to participate in secure and anonymous transactions.