Google Adopts, Forks OpenID 1.0

I’ve just read this interesting article from Slashdot, Google Adopts, Forks OpenID 1.0, which discusses an article published in NeoSmart about Google’s forking of the OpenID standard.

Open ID is a great concept of creating your own universally acceptable user login id that also allows you to protect your personal data for floating around all over the Net.

I began to wonder why on Earth would Google want to fork OpenID? Usability and greater user experience? Nah… don’t think so. I think what Google really wants to do is make OpenID fit into their own system. If you’re a Google user, you’d know that whenever you need to get authenticated, you’ll need a google/gmail email address. The current OpenID standard requires a URI for a unique identification and not an email address. The URI is usually your web site address or a specific URI given to you by your openID provider.

Google is not about to change their own system to adopt the URI OpenID concept, it’s just not economically feasible for them. They’d rather make changes to OpenID and convince others to follow the changes. Does this mean that OpenID will stop being distributed in nature if Google suddenly requires a Gmail account for you to use it?

I’m no expert in OpenID but if Google would require you to use a something@gmail.com email address to authenticate to their services and OpenID is suppose to be UNIVERSAL in nature. How would you then be logging in to your Microsoft Hotmail account? Would you use something@gmail.com?

I think it defeats the whole purpose. I still want to be able to use the URL of my own personal site as an OpenID identifier rather than an email address.