OpenID receives heavyweight backing

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 7 Feb 2008 at 17:29

Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo have joined the board of the OpenID Foundation, as the single sign-in scheme gathers momentum.

OpenID is a digital management standard that allows web users to register a single username and password that can then be used with any website that supports the system. The OpenID Foundation was created to promote the standard.

"There is little doubt that the success of OpenID will be tied to the quality of the user experience it brings to millions of consumers," says Nico Popp, the vice president of innovation at VeriSign.

"The Foundation will take it further and enable a true 'one-click' or even 'zero-click' user experience for login, registration, payment and all other forms of internet activities. The Foundation will be the place to funnel the best ideas from the community and set the best deployment practices."

The scheme received a boost last month when it was announced that anybody with a Yahoo ID would be able to use it on OpenID supported sites, tripling its userbase at a stroke.