Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Play Nice... For OpenID
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, the three vendors responsible for disturbing the force known as the Internet sector in the last week with offer bids and monopoly claims, are at peace on at least one thing: easier Web access.
The Big Three of Internet search, along with IBM and VeriSign, this week threw their hats into the ring as corporate board members of the OpenID Foundation, forged last June to support the OpenID technology.OpenID, created by Googler Brad Fitzpatrick, is a single sign-on virtual skeleton key, allowing us to enter sites such as Facebook, Amazon or eBay without registering 50 different usernames and passwords.
OpenID proponents also claim the software could also lower management costs for Web sites, which wouldn't have to authenticate users, and may reduce security risks because sites wouldn't have to keep socking away users' personal information to enable access.The reality is the software helps us become lazier, letting Web users convert a blog URL into an OpenID account, which can be used to log into any Web sites supporting OpenID.
Such a technology is valuable at a time when user-generated content and social networks comprise most of the Web use today. Moreover, it's a stepping stone to the real Holy Grail: data portability, in which users to move their social data from one site to another.Plaxo and Google are leading proponents of data portability, and Google's Fitzpatrick last week even unveiled a Social Graph API that finds connections between users on the Web. Single sign-on via OpenID and wholesale data portability make for a happy marriage if properly implemented.
In getting the Big 5 to become stewards for OpenID, the Foundation is assuring Web sites that the standard has serious support. The Foundation says more than 10,000 Web sites currently support OpenID log-ins, with some 350 million OpenID-enabled URLs in the Web world.In the grand scheme of things, this isn't much, but it's a good start. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and the others should be able to boost OpenID's proliferation.
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