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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>The beauty of the current OpenID
spec is that anyone can implement it and go live. However, with email
identifiers you need email providers to support it. If Google, Yahoo, AOL, or
Microsoft announced they are adding such a feature, I am sure the others are
likely to follow. Get 2 of these 4 and you’ve got something going. But
the biggest issue is not picking a standard but finding a company willing to
put something out there.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>As for the technical solutions,
there are many from DNS to XRDS to a simple template agreed by all. Brad
Fitzpatrick argued at FooCamp that this is not an OpenID issue, but a non-HTTP
URI --> HTTP URI conversation. Basically if you had a generic way of moving
from <a href="mailto:user@example.com">mailto:user@example.com</a> to <a
href="http://example.com/url/user">http://example.com/url/user</a> (or any
other URI with HTTP, the domain, and the user), any URI can be used for OpenID.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>But at the end this is about
someone of a major email provider saying they are interested and put out
something people can use. After that I expect the snowball to roll. So, do you
know anyone? </span><span style='font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F497D'>J</span><span
style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>EHL<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
specs-bounces@openid.net [mailto:specs-bounces@openid.net] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Paul
E. Jones<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, April 01, 2008 10:31 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> specs@openid.net<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Using email address as OpenID identifier<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Folks,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I’ve seen discussion here and there on the use of the
e-mail address as the OpenID identifier. Perhaps this one says it best:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><a
href="http://www.majordojo.com/2007/02/what-openid-needs.php">http://www.majordojo.com/2007/02/what-openid-needs.php</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I share many of same opinions. If OpenID is going to
be practically usable by the average person, we cannot require the person to
remember some very complex identifier. When I signed up for Yahoo’s
OpenID service, it presented me with a hideously ugly URL that looked similar
to a base64-encoded string. I could not begin to tell you what it
was. Fortunately, Yahoo allowed me to define my own, friendlier
name. Still, the ID is not one that the average user will remember or get
right.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>While the e-mail address does not have to be the one’s
ID, it can certainly serve as an alias. Suppose, for example, that the
DNS records at Yahoo contained the following entry:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>
yahoo.com. IN NAPTR 100 10 "U" "OpenID2"
"^(.+)@(.*)$!https://me.yahoo.com/\1!i"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This would allow a Relaying Party to accept an e-mail
address and perform a simple transformation to get the “real” URL
identifier. Of course, this does not mean that the existing URL or XRI
identifiers are invalid, nor does it mean that the “email address”
has to be a real e-mail address. But, this form would certainly be far
simpler for most people to deal use.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>If something like this has been discussed and rejected, what
was the reason?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Thanks,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Paul<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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