Yahoo announced today that it will support OpenID 2.0, the framework that lets Internet users utilize their existing user IDs across multiple sites. This will allow Yahoo users to log into other sites that also support OpenID with their existing Yahoo usernames. It won’t, however, allow non-Yahoo users to log in to Yahoo sites with their OpenIDs.
Still, Yahoo’s participation gives OpenID a huge boost because it adds 248 million new users to the mix, tripling the number of total OpenID users. And Yahoo is in good company; the company joins Blogger, LiveJournal, AOL, and Digg, as well many others that have already adopted OpenID. Google and IBM have been rumored to join, as well.
The service will go into beta at the end of January, and Yahoo already has a webpage intended to educate its users about OpenID. Larry Dignan at ZDNet notes that Yahoo didn’t join OpenID 1.0 because it was concerned about security, but its endorsement today is the best vote of confidence in 2.0′s security and will likely bring on board many other sites, especially as related issues like data portability and open APIs also continue to gain support.
