Google, IBM, Microsoft and VeriSign join Yahoo on OpenID

The OpenID Foundation on Thursday said that Google, IBM, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo have joined its board.

The additions--Yahoo joined OpenID last month and made its accounts compatible--are a big boost to the single sign-on initiative. While these newcomers are a nice addition to the board it's unclear from the statement whether they'll be rapidly using OpenID on their sites.

In a statement (also see Techmeme), OpenID said:

With these companies' deep expertise in Internet and security technology, the OpenID Foundation strengthens the industry-wide effort to empower users with portable Web identities, or OpenIDs. This effort helps ensure the evolution of an open and interoperable Internet that helps people take control of how their personal information is shared on-line and aids on-line businesses to attract and retain more users by simplifying and securing the management of digital identities.

OpenID only has 10,000 sites supporting its log-ins, but Yahoo is expected to open the spigot to the effort. If Google and the other newcomers do the same OpenID will be cemented as a standard.