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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>FYI, my personal blog post supporting today's announcement
is up at <font color=navy><span style='color:navy'><a
href="http://self-issued.info/?p=57"
title="blocked::http://self-issued.info/?p=57">http://self-issued.info/?p=57</a>.
I'm sure others will be posting as well.<o:p></o:p></span></font></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> Best
wishes,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> --
Mike<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
general-bounces@openid.net [mailto:general-bounces@openid.net] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Bill Washburn<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Thursday, February 07, 2008
7:27 AM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> OpenID List<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> [OpenID] Press Release</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>FYI...<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=818650">http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=818650</a><br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div id=mwSources>
<div>
<p><strong><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>SOURCE:
OpenID Foundation</span></font></b></strong><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><a href="http://openid.net/foundation"
target="_blank"><span style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=300
height=91 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="http://media.marketwire.com/attachments/200802/404049_logo.jpg"></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<td width=15 style='width:11.25pt;padding:.75pt .75pt .75pt .75pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div id=timestamp>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Feb 07, 2008 09:00 ET<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div id=releaseHeadline>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Technology
Leaders Join OpenID Foundation to Promote Open Identity Management on the Web<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt;
font-weight:bold'>OpenID Foundation to Support Internet User Single Sign-On
Technology<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
</div>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>CORVALLIS,
OR--(Marketwire - February 7, 2008) - The <a href="http://openid.net/foundation">OpenID
Foundation</a> today announced that Google (NASDAQ: <a
href="http://www.marketwire.com/mw/stock.jsp?Ticker=GOOG">GOOG</a>), IBM (NYSE:
<a href="http://www.ibm.com/investor/" target="_new">IBM</a>), Microsoft
(NASDAQ: <a href="http://www.marketwire.com/mw/stock.jsp?Ticker=MSFT">MSFT</a>),
VeriSign (NASDAQ: <a href="http://www.marketwire.com/mw/stock.jsp?Ticker=VRSN">VRSN</a>)
and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: <a href="http://www.marketwire.com/mw/stock.jsp?Ticker=YHOO">YHOO</a>)
have joined as its first corporate board members. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>With
these companies' deep expertise in Internet and security technology, the OpenID
Foundation strengthens the industry-wide effort to empower users with portable
Web identities, or OpenIDs. This effort helps ensure the evolution of an open
and interoperable Internet that helps people take control of how their personal
information is shared on-line and aids on-line businesses to attract and retain
more users by simplifying and securing the management of digital identities. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
OpenID Foundation was formed in June 2007 to support and promote the technology
developed by the OpenID community. Members includes individuals, students,
non-profits, startups and industry giants that have come together to develop
and promote open identity management on the Web. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://openid.net/">OpenID</a> is free technology that simplifies the
on-line user experience by eliminating the need for multiple user names across
Internet sites, enabling individuals to take more control and ownership of
their digital identities. This user-centric digital identity technology helps
users reduce the pain of managing dozens, even hundreds of user-names and
passwords, and provides more control over what personal information they share
with Web sites when they sign-in using an OpenID. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Today,
more than 10,000 Web sites support OpenID log-ins, and an estimated 350 million
OpenID enabled URLs currently exist. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"With
this support from the new company board members, the OpenID Foundation will be
able to continue to promote and protect the technology and its community moving
forward," said Bill Washburn, Executive Director, OpenID Foundation.
"The community has clearly expanded since the inception of the Foundation
and these companies will help bring OpenID into the mainstream markets." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
industry collaboration supporting OpenID extends not only to the technology
itself, but also to the establishment of the OpenID Foundation as an open forum
to promote, protect and enable the OpenID technologies and community. The
OpenID community has matured rapidly from its inception as a loose coalition of
volunteers to the establishment of the OpenID Foundation with a strong mission
and intellectual property structure that enables all to participate in
developing and implementing OpenID technology. This progress has been made with
donations of legal resources by Microsoft and various contributions from
Google, IBM, VeriSign and Yahoo!. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Google
shares the OpenID Foundation's vision of a Web that's easy to use and built on
open standards available to everyone," said Brad Fitzpatrick, a software
engineer at Google who created OpenID while at Six Apart in 2005. "OpenID
was always intended to be a decentralized sign-on system, so it's fantastic to
join a foundation committed to keeping it free and unencumbered by proprietary
extensions." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Privacy
concerns have been escalating rapidly because of repeated incidents involving
unexpected personal information loss and user identity theft," said
Anthony Nadalin, IBM Distinguished Engineer and chief security architect, IBM
Tivoli software. "As a leader in identity, access and federated identity
management and open standards-based software, this is an important step in
IBM's collaboration with other industry leaders to continuously enhance open
source projects for user-centric identity. This effort is intended to provide
users with more control and to help them better manage and protect their
digital identities." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
OpenID community is a key constituency in solving the digital identity problems
Internet users face, and will benefit from being represented by the OpenID
Foundation," said <st1:PersonName w:st="on">Kim Cameron</st1:PersonName>,
Microsoft's Chief Identity Architect. "Since Bill Gates and Craig Mundie
announced our collaboration with the OpenID community last February at RSA,
Microsoft has played a leading role in establishing the Foundation's open
policy framework that allows everyone to participate in the development and use
of OpenID specifications. Now, we look forward to working with the community to
refine and drive adoption of the specifications." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"OpenID
enables consumers to take control of their online identity, which in turn will
drive trust, privacy and security on the Internet," said Nico Popp, vice
president of Innovation at VeriSign, Inc. "Networked identity and
authentication services are core elements of VeriSign's current and future
service offerings. Because of this, we applaud the creation of the OpenID
foundation and we look forward to contributing to its mission." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Yahoo!
believes that a truly open Web is the key to the next-generation of Internet
experiences; OpenID furthers this cause by delivering a free, standards-based
solution that the entire industry can embrace," said Ash Patel, executive
vice president of platforms and infrastructure at Yahoo!. "Over the last
year we have worked closely with the OpenID Foundation to develop the
organization's intellectual property framework, finalize the OpenID 2.0
specification and to adopt OpenID for all 248 million active registered Yahoo!
users worldwide. We look forward to collaborating with the OpenID Foundation,
its board and community to further simplify the consumer experience of the Web
and empower users to take control of their online identity with OpenID." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>OpenID
Technology <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>With the
increased use of the Internet to conduct business and the rise of new types of
on-line interactions, such as social networking and user-generated content,
innovative kinds of digital identifier technologies are necessary to sustain
the "open Web." OpenID enables individuals to convert one of their
already existing digital identifiers -- such as their personal blog's URL --
into an OpenID account, which then can be used as a log-in at any Web sites
supporting OpenID. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Wide
adoption of OpenID reduces the frustration of repeatedly having to register
username/password accounts and then later recalling log-in information for an
ever increasing array of Web sites. For on-line businesses, these efforts can
lower password and account management costs, help reduce the overall risks of
security breaches by limiting the amount of customer personal information
businesses need to store and protect, and increase both new and return user
traffic by lowering the barriers to Web site entry and reentry. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>To learn
more about the OpenID Foundation, please visit <a
href="http://openid.net/foundation">http://openid.net/foundation</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>To learn
more about the OpenID, please visit <a href="http://openid.net/">http://openid.net</a>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Press Contacts:<br>
<br>
Bill Washburn<br>
OpenID Foundation<br>
707-545-4823<br>
<a href="mailto:bill@oidf.org">bill@oidf.org</a><br>
<br>
<st1:PersonName w:st="on">Oscar Shine</st1:PersonName><br>
Google Public Relations<br>
650-253-0216<br>
<a href="mailto:oshine@google.com">oshine@google.com</a><br>
<br>
<st1:PersonName w:st="on">Lon Levitan</st1:PersonName><br>
IBM Public Relations<br>
512-823-0404<br>
<a href="mailto:llevitan@us.ibm.com">llevitan@us.ibm.com</a><br>
<br>
Brittany Mariotti<br>
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (for Microsoft)<br>
425-638-7075<br>
<a href="mailto:bmariotti@waggeneredstrom.com">bmariotti@waggeneredstrom.com</a><br>
<br>
Christina Rohall<br>
VeriSign Public Relations<br>
650-427-5219<br>
<a href="mailto:crohall@verisign.com">crohall@verisign.com</a><br>
<br>
<st1:PersonName w:st="on">Denis Roy</st1:PersonName><br>
Yahoo! Public Relations<br>
408-349-2570<br>
<a href="mailto:denisroy@yahoo-inc.com">denisroy@yahoo-inc.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
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