This morning, the OpenID Foundation announced that PayPal has joined the OpenID Foundation Board, becoming the first financial institution to join the Foundation as a sustaining member. Andrew Nash, Sr. Director of Information Risk Management, has been named as the PayPal representative on the Board. PayPal’s commitment to the cause is another vote of confidence for OpenID, especially considering PayPal’s role dealing with sensitive financial data.
With eBay – via PayPal – now actively engaging in the discussion, the collection of Web juggernauts at the OpenID table grows ever more impressive. Fellow sustaining members include Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign, and Yahoo!.
Granted, this could be another opportunity for us to herald a tippingpoint for OpenID. But at a time when solutions like OpenID, sign-on services like Facebook Connect, and all-encompassing solutions like JanRain RPX continue to gain traction, we’ll settle for noting that the concept of portable digital identities continues to gather momentum – and acceptance.
In conjunction with the PayPal announcement, the Foundation also announced the election of its officers: Brian Kissel of JanRain, Chair; Scott Kveton of Vidoop, Vice-Chair; Mike Jones of Microsoft, Secretary; Raj Mata of Yahoo!, Treasurer, and David Recordon of Six Apart, Committee Liaison. An international liaison is yet to be named.
If you’re interested in hearing more on OpenID directly from the members of the OpenID Foundation, ReadWriteWeb recently had the opportunity to sit down for an OpenID podcast with Kissel, Kveton, Chris Messina, and Recordon to discuss OpenID and its potential.
