Yahoo! and OpenID

Yahoo! plans to start using OpenID. This is cool and may be a turning point.

A few observations what’s not cool:

• Trying to get preferential treatment by using Yahoo!-specific OpenID login buttons. This effectively shuts out other OpenID providers.

• Claiming “Yahoo! worked closely with the OpenID foundation and community to finalize [OpenID 2.0] in December 2007” when Yahoo! was notably absent from OpenID 2.0 specification work.

In all, though, a giant leap forward and a crucial test whether the protocol is strong enough. It will be an interesting February!