Google News, Inside.

Google, along with companies such as IBM and Verisign, are said to be willing to join hands with the OpenID Foundation. What is OpenID? “OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.” — http://openid.net/what/

This is something that has been long sought after and needed. There are, however, many security risks involved. This primary security risk of privacy and servers being compromised is the largest factor that has held back any one company from starting this “open identification” network.

Here is a little excerpt that explains a bit more about OpenID,

Who Owns or Controls OpenID?

OpenID has arisen from the open source community to solve the problems that could not be easily solved by other existing technologies. OpenID is a lightweight method of identifying individuals that uses the same technology framework that is used to identify websites. As such, OpenID is not owned by anyone, nor should it be. Today, anyone can choose to be an OpenID user or an OpenID Provider for free without having to register or be approved by any organization.

The OpenID Foundation was formed to assist the open source model by providing a legal entity to be the steward for the community by providing needed infrastructure and generally helping to promote and support expanded adoption of OpenID.

As Brad Fitzpatrick (the father of OpenID) said, “Nobody should own this. Nobody’s planning on making any money from this. The goal is to release every part of this under the most liberal licenses possible, so there’s no money or licensing or registering required to play. It benefits the community as a whole if something like this exists, and we’re all a part of the community.”

But wait! Google is not alone, Yahoo! seems to be on the OpenID Train too! “Simon Willison discovered that the source code for photostream pages on Flickr contain a code snippet that would allow Flickr accounts to act as OpenID URLs. Since Flickr accounts are tied to Yahoo IDs, this code also suggests that Yahoo intends to support OpenID within more Yahoo properties than just Flickr.”

Who’s left to adopt this technology? Microsoft.

This cross-platform identification system would allow for more services to be utilized and privacy to be better protected — hopefully.