OpenID Connect Identity Protocol Launches With Support From Google, Microsoft & Others
Signing users in to a mobile or web app isn't necessarily hard, but keeping their credentials safe is something that's often best left to specialists. The OpenID Foundation today announced the launch …
Context & Ripple Effects
OpenID spent its early years trying to turn decentralized identity into a consumer habit, but coverage described too many providers and too few consumers and a confusing signup experience. By 2008, large companies and thousands of websites accepted OpenID sign-ins, without resolving mass adoption.
The OpenID Foundation’s Connect launch, backed by Google and Microsoft, shifts the emphasis from simply adding providers to establishing a common protocol for web and mobile sign-in. It builds on the earlier prospect of major platforms joining OpenID, including Google, IBM and VeriSign’s reported talks.
First-order effects
- Developers gain a standardized identity-protocol option with support from Google and Microsoft, reducing the need to build credential handling independently for each service.
- Google and Microsoft attach their support to an OpenID Foundation protocol, making interoperability rather than a single company’s sign-in system the immediate proposition.
Second-order effects
- Proprietary sign-in systems, including Facebook Connect, face added pressure to match the reach and ease of integration offered by a protocol supported by major identity providers.
- Web and mobile services can weigh a common protocol against maintaining separate integrations, concentrating competitive value in the identity providers and developer experience rather than basic login plumbing.
Third-order effects
- If major providers implement Connect consistently, digital identity can move from a fragmented collection of provider-specific sign-ins toward a shared interoperability layer.
- The launch tests whether standards backing can overcome OpenID’s earlier consumer-adoption problem, with usability and deployment by large platforms determining whether the protocol becomes infrastructure.
The trend: Digital identity is moving toward interoperable protocols backed by major platforms, rather than separate sign-in systems for each web service.