Reply With QuoteWell, that sucks.
Microsoft's Passport to be tossed by eBay
Online auction site won't accept system in late January
Online auction giant eBay Inc. will stop letting members sign in to its site using Microsoft Corp.'s Passport service, another sign of the scaling back of the Redmond company's once-sweeping vision for its user authentication system.
EBay, based in San Jose, Calif., told users in a statement on its site this week that it plans to stop using the Passport system in late January. Online job posting service Monster Worldwide Inc. stopped using Passport during the fall.
The move by eBay ends an arrangement forged in 2001 and underscores consumers' unwillingness to embrace Passport outside Microsoft's own MSN Internet network.
"A very small percentage of eBay users regularly signed in using Passport," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy, who added that the company also has provided alternatives to users who receive eBay alerts through Microsoft's .NET service.
The original idea behind Microsoft's Passport service was to let Internet users have a single user name and password that could be used on the Web sites of many different companies.
But the focus has gradually narrowed to Microsoft's own sites and to those of certain Microsoft partners.
"This has been an evolution of our thinking over the past couple years," said Adam Sohn, MSN marketing director. He noted that the company remains committed to using the Passport service and to offering it to others in situations in which it makes sense.
Microsoft sites on which the Passport technology is used include the MSN Internet service, the free Hotmail e-mail service and the Encarta online encyclopedia, among others.
Passport is also incorporated into the recently introduced MSN Spaces weblog publishing service, and into the online statistical delivery system for the "Halo 2" video game for Microsoft's Xbox.
A competitive response to Passport came in the form of the Liberty Alliance, a consortium of companies including Sun Microsystems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., American Express Co. and Sony Corp. The group's aim was to create standards for identifying people on the Web and to promote services to rival Passport.
The Redmond company acquired the Passport technology when it bought Firefly Network Inc., a software company, in 1998.
Privacy groups and antitrust regulators weighed in with concerns, and in 2003 security experts unearthed a flaw that could have allowed scam artists to hijack older Passport accounts.
Retailers also balked at the prospect of having Microsoft at the center of online transactions and worried that it might one day try to take a cut.
Passport has about 200 million users, many of whom use it to sign on to Microsoft's e-mail and instant messenger products.
Source: SEATTLE POST
Well, that sucks.
That actually sucks big time because so many people will now have to register with ebay, and other companies that will follow ebay's decision.
That sucks, even though I don't use EBay, people still have to go through the tedious task of registering.
Yeah, and it's not hundreds that we talk about, it's hundreds of thousands of users.
ouch, that piss lots of people off
"If you enjoy what you do, you'll never work another day in your life."
My man confucius said it well :D
Why is my signature text blue I did not make it like that??
Exactly how many websites and companies use this passport system?
Sounds to me like M$ trying to take over the internet.
Passport's been around for over 5 years if memory serves well. How many sites, I don't know but I do know many big sites allow passport. Amazon did at one point too, not sure if they continue to do that or not.
What's the big deal of having to register at EBay?
Some people don't want to register, the word "register" freaks them out, in a way. And there are many of these kind of people. I've actually seen some people who go to the "only" sites that let them log in with their passport.
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