Ehestatus

Ehestatus is a term used in this article to describe a cross-platform protocol and service for publishing and consuming user presence information. It conceptualizes a standardized, machine-readable representation of a person's current status that can be shared across messaging apps, collaboration platforms, and smart devices.

Technical overview: The Ehestatus model defines a compact payload exchanged via secure transport. A status object typically includes a human-readable status string, an availability category (online, offline, away, do_not_disturb), an activity descriptor, a timestamp, and optional context such as location hints or device, with privacy controls. Implementations use a publisher-subscriber pattern: clients publish status updates to a hub or directly to subscribers. A shared schema and content-type enable interoperability across platforms.

Privacy and consent: Users opt in to share status, select visibility groups, and can limit data to non-identifying fields. Data minimization and encryption are recommended.

Development and adoption: Ehestatus originated in a hypothetical cross-industry standards effort in the 2020s. While multiple platforms have experimented with prototypes, broad adoption remains limited in this fictional context.

Criticism and impact: Proponents argue it improves presence awareness and collaboration, while critics raise concerns about privacy, data ownership, and consent granularity.

See also: presence information, presence protocol, ActivityPub, JSON schema.