Sean Reiser

Google today announced that you will be able to use your gmail account as an OpenID account. This follows a similar announcement for Microsoft eariler in the week. Yahoo, has been doing something similar since the beginning of the year. There's been talk that these companies embraced OpenID, something I disagree with.

The problem is that these relationships are rather one way. You can use your google account to log onto any openid enabled site, it doesn't however allow you to log onto a google service with an openid credential. Google still wants to be the company who owns your identity if you're using their services. The same goes for Yahoo, and one presumes MS. I'm picking on Google, but this applies to everyone who works the same way.

Embracing OpenID does not mean, "We'll let you use the account we host as a login". It means, "we'll accept you, no matter who owns your identity, we'll gladly host it for you, but if you're using someone else to host it, or if you host it yourself, it makes no difference to us. Welcome Friend".

Call me when Google will will allow me to log onto my adsense account using another provider's openID... until then they haven't embraced openID.

End of Rant.