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Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

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Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#2

Post by dredmorbius »

And why wouldn't I prefer to have a set of fully independent, unlinked accounts at different sites?

If I understand correctly, using OpenID means that Site A can confirm that User X is the same as User X on Site B, using OpenID?

I can see where that's a win for sites A & B. I can also see many instances where that is not a win for me.

Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#3

Post by goodside »

dredmorbius wrote: post #2

And why wouldn't I prefer to have a set of fully independent, unlinked accounts at different sites? If I understand correctly, using OpenID means that Site A can confirm that User X is the same as User X on Site B, using OpenID? I can see where that's a win for sites A & B. I can also see many instances where that is not a win for me.

If you use the same e-mail address to sign up for both sites, they can already determine this. The only way to get the anonymity you want is to create new throwaway accounts for each service. (I realize GMail lets you do things like + aliases, but these should be stripped when trying to match up users across databases.)

Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#4

Post by fmystic »

dredmorbius wrote: post #2

And why wouldn't I prefer to have a set of fully independent, unlinked accounts at different sites? If I understand correctly, using OpenID means that Site A can confirm that User X is the same as User X on Site B, using OpenID? I can see where that's a win for sites A & B. I can also see many instances where that is not a win for me.

That would only be true if both OpenID consumers published their user's endpoints

Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#5

Post by dazbradbury »

At OpenRent [1], we use the google identity toolkit [2] and whilst it has a few quirks and bugs, it's been received fairly well by even our non-tech crowd. It uses email providers as identity providers - and is only as intrusive as inputting your email into a traditional log in box, just with much less friction, and without the requirement to remember another password!

I'm surprised it's not seen bigger adoption in the start-up crowd, but I guess it was slightly more work and isn't quite in-line with the MVP culture.

It also places a reliance on a third party - but in this case I expect good reliability from Google, and have a fallback option in place (both for availability, and to support older browsers).

[1] - http://www.openrent.co.uk

[2] - https://developers.google.com/identity-toolkit/

Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#7

Post by drivebyacct2 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #2

And why wouldn't I prefer to have a set of fully independent, unlinked accounts at different sites? If I understand correctly, using OpenID means that Site A can confirm that User X is the same as User X on Site B, using OpenID? I can see where that's a win for sites A & B. I can also see many instances where that is not a win for me.

How is this different than correlating user names or email addresses? Especially given that most of the OpenIds out in the wild are specifically keyed off of email addresses anyway.

Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#8

Post by tomschlick »

The reason you dont see it mainstream is because for someone like my mom its too difficult to understand. She does however understand "Login with Facebook/Google/Twitter" because it is simple, one click, approve permissions and done. Anything more is just a hassle for them to remember and they will fallback to email/password instead.

Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#9

Post by earl »

goodside wrote: post #3
dredmorbius wrote: post #2

And why wouldn't I prefer to have a set of fully independent, unlinked accounts at different sites? If I understand correctly, using OpenID means that Site A can confirm that User X is the same as User X on Site B, using OpenID? I can see where that's a win for sites A & B. I can also see many instances where that is not a win for me.

If you use the same e-mail address to sign up for both sites, they can already determine this. The only way to get the anonymity you want is to create new throwaway accounts for each service. (I realize GMail lets you do things like + aliases, but these should be stripped when trying to match up users across databases.)

Or run your own mailserver and hand out email addresses like servicename @ [yourmailserver].com

Everything gets forwarded to the same inbox.

tuffmail.com is awesome and cheap; I'm a happy subscriber.

Re: Yet Another Sign Up (Why Isn't Open ID More Popular By Now?)

#10

Post by zpk »

goodside wrote: post #3
dredmorbius wrote: post #2

And why wouldn't I prefer to have a set of fully independent, unlinked accounts at different sites? If I understand correctly, using OpenID means that Site A can confirm that User X is the same as User X on Site B, using OpenID? I can see where that's a win for sites A & B. I can also see many instances where that is not a win for me.

If you use the same e-mail address to sign up for both sites, they can already determine this. The only way to get the anonymity you want is to create new throwaway accounts for each service. (I realize GMail lets you do things like + aliases, but these should be stripped when trying to match up users across databases.)

So let them, let them have to do that work and share email addresses, which would potentially be a PR nightmare if discovered, and users did not consent. I'd rather do that than willingly give multiple domains my ID letting one service unify them, and share my ID across multiple sits if the service chooses to. And who's to say people don't already use multiple email addresses?
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