Microsoft, Google, Yahoo gain seats on OpenID Foundation board
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What Yahoo's massive conversion to OpenID last month lacked is a way for Web sites to securely authenticate the users who have signed in. As it turns out, OpenID's directing body may want Microsoft to provide that part.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft says it will focus on four key areas to improve interoperability between its own software and other vendors' products. Senior Microsoft representatives met with InfoWorld on Thursday to highlight identity management; Web services and related development; collaboration between information workers and system management comprise the new interoperability focus. "We are really working on new protocols in the WS-* [spoken as Web services star] space that enable interoperability across identity systems," said Jean Paoli, Microsoftâs general manager of interoperability and XML architecture. Lat week, Microsoft vowed to integrate its CardSpace identity management system with the OpenID Web authentication standard. Paoli emphasized the move as evidence of the commitment. WS-* represents a series of Web services-related specifications for standardization in areas such as security and messaging. A lot of the issues Microsoft has in interoperability tend to fall into these four categories, said Tom Robertson, the companyâs general manager of interoperability and standards. "Those are the four areas that we're hearing about now," as needing attention, Paoli said. "It doesn't mean the list is closed." Microsoft's identity management push, however, apparently will not be centered on its previous Passport initiative for Internet security.Â  "I've not been hearing about Passport in so long," Paoli said. Microsoft plans to be creative in addressing interoperability, using a host of tools at its disposal. "It's going to mean making IP available in a range of ways," Robertson said. The company already has dabbled in open source as a way to boost interoperability, offering a bridge between the OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft's Open XML electronic document formats, said Robertson. Paoli and Robertson listed multiple Microsoft interoperability projects in the past several years, such as its work with Novell on interoperability between Windows and Novell's Suse Linux. The company's interoperability effort with Sun Microsystems also was noted. But they remained upset with IBM for what Microsoft perceives are IBM efforts to block Open XML from becoming approved as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The two co-authored an open letter this week entitled "Interoperability, Choice and Open XML," that pointed fingers of blame at IBM. "The open letter is an effort to clearly articulate what Microsoft is trying to do," Robertson said. It is important to shine a light on what IBM is doing to block Open XML and block choice, he added. In response, an IBM representative pointed to the ConsortiumInfo.org Standards Blog, which states there is "significant commercial opposition" to Microsoft's electronic document proposal. Microsoft made a "bad bet " that ODF would fail in the marketplace, the blog stated.
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DECEMBER 10, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Ask Jeeves Inc. are all set to jump into the desktop search market, two months after Internet search leader Google Inc.
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Privacy groups are promising a fight before U.S. regulatory agencies if&#160;Microsoft&#39;s offer to buy Yahoo&#160;for $44.6 billion is accepted, and the deal could face significant hurdles in Europe as well.Microsoft announced that it&#160;sent an offer to Yahoo&#39;s board of directors&#160;on Thursday, going public with the news Friday morning. Immediately, the executive directors of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said the acquisition would raise serious privacy concerns.CDD will press the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and Congress to &quot;scrutinize this deal and impose the needed safeguards for it -- and the industry,&quot; said Jeffrey Chester, CDD&#39;s executive director. CDD and EPIC tried to stop Google&#39;s proposed acquisition of online ad service DoubleClick on privacy grounds before the FTC last year, but the FTC approved the deal in December.The Microsoft-Yahoo deal, if consummated, would &quot;create a powerful interactive Internet duopoly in online media,&quot; Chester said. &quot;Google and Microsoft will have inordinate power to shape the online communications marketplace, including journalism, entertainment and advertising. There are consequences to democratic societies everywhere, as two digital gatekeepers are likely to control how the Internet and other interactive media evolve.&quot;The proposed deal also underscores a need for new laws or regulations that protect consumer data, Chester added. &quot;In an era when individuals are increasingly conducting their personal, social and political lives online, the corporations that control the digital experience will have a far-reaching influence over every aspect of society,&quot; he said. &quot;Consumers will be more vulnerable to having their personal information become the property of the GoogleClick&#39;s and Microhoo&#39;s.&quot;But the DOJ and FTC may have little grounds to oppose a Microsoft/Yahoo merger, said Professor Keith Hylton, who specializes in antitrust issues at the Boston University law school. While Microsoft and Yahoo compete in some areas, Microsoft could argue this a &quot;vertical&quot; merger that largely expands its online services, but largely doesn&#39;t eliminate competition, he said.&quot;I think Microsoft is trying to ramp up in the online services/online ad revenue business,&quot; Hylton said. &quot;Microsoft is a small player in that area, and Google is a big player. This is a merger of two firms trying to compete against a big monster out there -- Google.&quot;But the deal could face more hurdles in Europe. If the deal allows Microsoft to take components of Windows online, and &quot;in the process increases Microsoft&#39;s dominance of the market for PC operating systems,&quot; then the European Commission would have to prohibit the deal, said an antitrust lawyer in Europe who asked not to be identified.European Union merger rules prohibit dominant companies from increasing their dominance, the lawyer said.The combined company would likely have sell off an instant-messaging service, added a European Commission official familiar with the competition department. &quot;I can&#39;t see how Microsoft/Yahoo would be allowed to keep both instant-messaging services,&quot; said the official, who also asked not to be identified.Microsoft campaigned for federal regulators to block the Google-DoubleClick deal, partly on antitrust grounds. But Google argued the acquisition would join two companies operating in different online markets.This week, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia extended antitrust scrutiny of Microsoft for two years. But the U.S. government&#39;s antitrust case against Microsoft was based on its desktop and server operating systems, not online services. If anything, the old antitrust case could help Microsoft make the case for approval of its acquisition of Yahoo, Hylton said.&quot;I assume Microsoft people can say, &#39;Look, we&#39;re already under a microscope, doesn&#39;t this suggest we&#39;re less likely to do anticompetitive things?&#39;&quot; Hylton said.But a consolidating online market means users will have their data held by a small number of companies, said Professor Joseph Turow, at University of Pennsylvania school of communication.&quot;Microsoft&#39;s decision to buy Yahoo is a direct result of the decision by the FTC to allow Google to purchase DoubleClick,&quot; he said. &quot;It is further evidence that despite the appearance of unlimited choice in the new media environment, people&#39;s activities will be tracked and shaped by a very small number of companies who care far more about surveillance and targeted advertising than the public interest.&quot;The public needs to demand privacy scrutiny in the proposed deal, he said. &quot;The federal government, which should have been the guardian of the public interest, has dropped the ball.&quot;(Additional reporting by Paul Meller in Brussels.)
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UPDATE: Yahoo user names and passwords can soon be used to access Web sites that support the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework.
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People with a Yahoo user name and password will be able to use that ID information to access non-Yahoo Web sites that&#160;support the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework, reducing the amount of different log-in information people need to create, remember and enter online.Already, almost 10,000 Web sites support OpenID, an open framework available for free to end users and Web site operators alike, according to the OpenID Foundation.Yahoo&#39;s move will triple the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million by adding its 248 million active registered users to the rolls, the company said Thursday.OpenID addresses one of several issues related to giving people more control of their online activities. Other groups are focusing on data portability, to let people move around the data and content they create online, so that they don&#39;t have to enter it manually in, say, every social-networking site they sign up for.Yet other initiatives, like Google&#39;s OpenSocial, aim to create standard interfaces so that developers can create applications that run in multiple social-networking sites, instead of having to rewrite the same application multiple times for every site.For all of these initiatives, it&#39;s critical for major Internet players to get involved, so that the benefits of standard technology and methods developed by groups like OpenID can have a real-world impact.Unsurprisingly, in Thursday&#39;s statement, Scott Kveton, the OpenID Foundation&#39;s chairman, hailed Yahoo&#39;s support as a crucial validation of the framework that will help spur its adoption by other large Web site operators.Other major players that have expressed interest and gotten involved in varying degrees with OpenID include Google, Six Apart, AOL, Sun, Novell, and Microsoft.Yahoo&#39;s announcement doesn&#39;t come as a complete surprise, since signs that it had been working on an OpenID implementation had surfaced. For example, a short message in the domain me.yahoo.com indicating the company would act as an identity provider for OpenID was spotted last week.Yahoo participated in the development of version 2.0 of the OpenID framework, which the company said provides new security features. Yahoo users who log in to third-party OpenID sites should know that the log-in process doesn&#39;t reveal e-mail or instant-message addresses, Yahoo said Thursday.Yahoo&#39;s initial OpenID service will be available in public beta on Jan. 30 and the company is working with several partners, including Plaxo, so that the Yahoo ID will work on their sites that day.&#160;
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Is Open ID the glue we need? Microsoft isn't the only one taking an interest in Open ID. AOL, Yahoo! and Digg have all announced they'll accept Open ID credentials as a way of identifying users online.â¦
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Unthinkable a year ago, perhaps, but there are currently indications that Microsoft is starting to think about identity management systems in terms of interoperability. A meeting  later this month with vendors and other organizations such as the Liberty Alliance promises to be productive.
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IBM, Google, Microsoft, Verisign and Yahoo have joined the corporate board of the OpenID Foundation, giving a boost to the groupâs efforts to simplify the process of signing into Web sites.
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Google Inc. on Friday will join the crowded field of services registering Web site addresses in a move aimed at encouraging more usage of the online search leader's free software products.
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"Big Blue" may also earn the nickname "Big Linux Supporter" as IBM continues to embrace open-source efforts to hike its market share and challenge competitors, including Microsoft.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft will participate in a meeting later this month with vendors and organizations that are backing several different identity management systems, an indication that&#160;cooperation between the software giant and its peers&#160;is improving.
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The Internet Engineering Task Force has nixed Microsoft&#39;s Sender ID proposal because of patent concerns. By Thomas Claburn. The Internet Engineering Task Force, an international standards organization, has
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Yahoo appears close to implementing OpenID, a Web authentication standard that relieves people of the need to remember multiple passwords to log into different Web sites.
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Microsoft Corp. has appointed a new leader for its Worldwide Public Sector group, which plays a key role in its efforts to counter competition from open source software in government and education markets.
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Shared bank accounts next? Call it co-incidence or call it necessity, but Microsoft has jumped on-board a Yahoo!-backed initiative to give internet users a single digital identity.â¦
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Lions lay down with lambs The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has approved two of Microsoft's shared source licenses. The controversial move paves the way for developers to use the Microsoft Reciprocal License and the Microsoft Public License as a valid methodology for creating open source applications.â¦