Does IDENT verify identities or claims?

No.
IDENT does not verify, certify, or validate claims. It records owner-declared statements and makes responsibility explicit. Verification, if needed, happens elsewhere.

Is an IDENT record a profile or public page?

Not really.
An IDENT record is not a profile, feed, or biography. It is a minimal reference record designed for stability, not engagement.

Who is responsible for a record?

The user who creates and maintains the record is fully responsible for its content and implications.
IDENT makes authorship visible; it does not share or dilute responsibility.

Can records be changed or removed?

Records may evolve or be deprecated, but public identity names and identifiers are designed to persist.
This ensures long-term reference integrity, even when a record is no longer actively maintained.

What happens if nothing is updated?

Nothing needs to.
A record can remain valid and meaningful precisely because it does not change, while the rest of the web does.

Is IDENT centralized?

Technically, yes.
Conceptually, it is minimal by design: no ranking, no inference, no arbitration. Governance focuses on infrastructure and continuity, not content control.

Why should anyone trust IDENT?

IDENT does not ask for blind trust.
Trust emerges over time through clarity, restraint, consistency, and persistence. IDENT’s role is to keep declarations stable and attributable.

Is IDENT meant to improve visibility or SEO?

No.
IDENT is not designed for promotion, traffic, or growth. Any SEO benefit is a side effect of stability, not a feature.

Can IDENT be used by machines and AI systems?

Yes.
Records are accessible via stable URLs and machine-readable representations, making them suitable as sources of truth for automated systems.

What happens if IDENT shuts down?

IDENT is designed with long time horizons in mind.
Governance, identifiers, and data structures prioritize durability and predictability over short-term optimization.