timeout for a minor geekbreak

January 17th, 2008

This is very cool news to me. I am a big fan of the concept of OpenID, and glad to see Yahoo bringing it to the forefront.

Yahoo throws its weight behind OpenID single sign-on

The OpenID online authentication standard got a massive boost today. Yahoo has announced it intends to adopt OpenID, and will be offering all current Yahoo account holders the chance to upgrade to OpenID accounts. The company will also adopt sign-in seals—the unique photos displayed at banking websites and associated with each individual users’ account—to help users confirm that they are, in fact, logging into a genuine Yahoo webpage.

Also, though I am a big fan of Google’s services (they’re mighty handy!) recent stories about their philosophies, and those of the creators of Facebook, make me more concerned than excited that they’re going to work together on an OpenID standard.

Facebook, Google, and Plaxo recently announced their intentions to work with DataPortability.org in developing ways for end-users to move their own data and identification between various online services.