Telegraph to become OpenID provider

21 January 2008

The Telegraph has announced that it will be both providing and accepting OpenID logins "from the end of February".

Shane Richmond, who declared the move today in his Telegraph-hosted technology blog, wrote that The Telegraph would be the first newspaper in the world and the first British media company to become an open ID provider.

Last week, Yahoo became the biggest player so far to announce that it was supporting OpenID, following speculation the previous week that such a move was on the cards.

OpenID is an open-source authentication that allows secure website logins across multiple sites, using a single set of credentials. Consultant Simon Willison points out that it is "good for more than just authentication", as it "allows a user to assert ownership of a URL".

Blogging on Business Week's The Tech Beat, however, Rob Hof wondered whether OpenID was being pushed by marketers keen to target their ads more effectively.

"If so—and I could be wrong on that, since the people behind OpenID seem to have noble motives—I wonder if people already a little creeped out by targeted ads will find OpenID more of a problem than a solution," he said.

Category: Online journalism, Online marketing, Other, Yahoo