I'm looking for feedback and suggestions for a new ClearCoin feature: refund-to-charity
Here's how it works:
When Alice creates an escrow account at ClearCoin she says that, if the coins in the account are not released, they'll be donated to charity.
She then funds the account, and shows Bob (the person she's trading with) that the coins are sitting in escrow.
Alice knows that if Bob doesn't complete the trade he won't get the coins.
Bob knows that if Alice doesn't release the coins she won't get them either.
So neither Alice nor Bob has a strong incentive to cheat. They each have a weak incentive if they'd rather the charity get the coins (and they're not worried about potential harm to their reputation).
I've got an initial implementation up and running, with the list of charities from the Bitcoin wiki Trade page.
I'm thinking of a few enhancements, and would love feedback on which ones you think are critical and which would be just nice-to-have:
1. Give Bob (the person receiving the coins) a way to setup the escrow and send a link to Alice (who controls the account).
2. Let Bob and Alice agree (in advance) to refund the bitcoins to an arbitrary address instead of a fixed list of charities.
3. If the coins are refunded to charity, show Alice and Bob the transaction ID so it is easier for them to make sure ClearCoin isn't taking the coins.
General feedback, criticism, etc. is also very welcome!