[OpenID] A Case for OpenEmailID

[Martin Atkins]

David Recordon wrote:
> 
> As for OP portability (aka delegation), I think this is a property that 
> must remain for URLs though is less important for email addresses.  With 
> URLs you can delegate on the URL basis ignoring the domain or path.  
> With email addresses, I think it's alright to have one OpenID Provider 
> for the entire domain instead of optimizing for the case of each user at 
> the domain having their own Provider.
> 

It would be a shame to lose the ability to delegate if you switch to 
email addresses. The main use-case for delegation was folks with vanity 
domains, and people have vanity domains for email too. I don't want to 
have to run my own OP just to make mart at degeneration.co.uk work as an 
OpenID identifier.

Is there some reason why the delegation approach doesn't work for email 
too? It seems like all that needs to change for email is how you find 
the information, not what information is found.