[OpenID] Facebook Cooperation with German Email Providers?

[Peter Williams]

That is the question that many analysts are now asking; now there is something to bother asking about.

Is openid a movement that simply defined some bit of technology from which vendors build private authentication networks?

Or is openid an open standard that requires no vendor-vendor setup to let users interwork?

There are two things to measure: what the foundation says, and what one can measure as praxis of the larger corporate players.

From: openid-general-bounces at lists.openid.net [mailto:openid-general-bounces at lists.openid.net] On Behalf Of Carsten Pötter
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 11:15 AM
To: openid-general at lists.openid.net
Subject: [OpenID] Facebook Cooperation with German Email Providers?

Yesterday German email providers Web.de and GMX released a press release stating that their users will be able to log in to Facebook using OpenID (http://faz-community.faz.net/blogs/netzkonom/archive/2009/08/24/facebook-chooses-german-e-mail-provider-web-de-and-gmx-as-first-open-id-partner-in-europe.aspx). Both email providers are subsidiaries of United Internet and dominate the German email market.

So far both providers offered users a "navigator" to log in to various social networks, online merchants,... However users had to provide usernames and passwords -> password anti-pattern. If I got things right, both providers have to become OpenID Providers now. Though why is there an explicit cooperation with Facebook?

Is Facebook eventually accepting OpenIDs?
Are Web.de/GMX and Facebook using any vendor specific APIs or extensions?

Anyone from Facebook here who can shed some light on the topic? Thanks!

Carsten
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