Gmail IDs Become Open IDs

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 by Jordan McCollum

Gmail IDs Become Open IDs

I’ll admit it. I’ve put off purposefully joining Open ID for no real reason. But now, whether we want to or not, you and I (well, I’m guessing you are, anyway) are being jumped in to the world of Open ID. Because not only are Yahoo Mail and Windows Live Mail (aka Hotmail) joining the Open ID ranks, allowing their logins to become Open ID logins, but so is Gmail.

If you’ve forgotten/never learned what Open ID is, it’s like a universal login for participating sites. So now you can use your Gmail address to log in to other participating services. Like Zoho. Don’t everybody leave at once, though.

As TechCrunch notes, it’s not clear whether Gmail will also accept all Open ID logins. I’m guessing not. Says TC,

Google appears to be an OpenID “provider,” not a “relying party.” In other words, you cannot sign into Google with your Yahoo account. But this still helps the OpenID movement as a whole because it gives smaller sites more incentive to join as “relying parties.” Among the first sites to accept Gmail accounts for sign in are Zoho and Plaxo.

Open ID faces some competition from Facebook Connect, but, admittedly, not much. Future additions to the Open ID program may also include AOL and MySpace.

So, are you ready to sign in to every single website with the same login?

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9 comments on “Gmail IDs Become Open IDs”

GoScript Says:

October 29th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

Rule #1 for online safety: never use the same password for all of your logins.
Open ID seems to break this rule, or am I wrong?

GoScript’s last blog post..WordPress Uniquefier Plugin v3.0
Ari Herzog Says:

October 29th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

OpenID doesn’t break any password rules. I still use a different password for every site, but OpenID (or Chi.mp for that matter, something I’m currently testing) enables me not to login with usernames and passwords, as OpenID is a secure system that verifies me against a unique second password.

OpenID, Chi.mp, and other systems *could* be hacked but due to the https system, it’s unlikely.

But if you’re using the same password on multiple sites, then your risk of identity theft is greater.

Ari Herzog’s last blog post..Thank You For Inspiring Me
Nicole Price Says:

October 30th, 2008 at 2:05 am

This is very good news indeed. With many invitations for IMs it gets to be quite tiresome to log in different systems and this should help.

Nicole Price’s last blog post..Biggest Divorce Settlements
PopuTech Says:

October 30th, 2008 at 5:54 am

I agree with GoScript… are you from DP?

PopuTech’s last blog post..Alcatel-Lucent Strengthens Laptop Security
GoScript Says:

October 30th, 2008 at 8:17 am

^PopuTech yes I am. You too?

GoScript’s last blog post..WordPress Uniquefier Plugin v3.0
rajesh Says:

October 30th, 2008 at 9:01 am

yes ofcourse Open ID seems to break the rule….
Nick Says:

October 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am

Great news for all us Gmail users. Can’t wait till we will actually be able to use this functionality on a daily basis.

Oh and nice website : )

Nick’s last blog post..Google Reader update now includes more trends
WD Says:

October 30th, 2008 at 9:41 am

One thing to note though is that it seems Google, as it like to do things it’s own way, has not actually used the OpenID standard but created their own variation of it.

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/google-doesnt-use-openid/
Ted Murphy Says:

October 30th, 2008 at 11:15 am

I would if I had an open id wallet. That’s what I want.

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