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AOL joins Liberty Alliance
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December 4, 2001: 2:18 p.m. ET
Group is set to establish Web authentication service standards.
By Staff Writer Richard Richtmyer
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - AOL Time Warner on Tuesday threw its weight behind a group of companies that have agreed to cooperate and create an open system for managing the "digital identities" of computer network users.
The company will be the 34th to pledge its support to the coalition, called the Liberty Alliance, whose aim is to create a system that would allow users have a single user name and password for Web sites and services on the Internet.
Such a system would be built using an open standard available freely to anyone who wished to participate. It would go head-to-head with Microsoft's controversial Passport authentication service, a key element of the software maker's strategy to shift its focus away from packaged software and onto a services-based business model.
AOL (AOL: up $0.46 to $34.04, Research, Estimates), the parent company of CNN/Money, will be a founding member of the group, joining other Microsoft foes including Sun Microsystems (SUNW: down $0.01 to $13.49, Research, Estimates) and Real Networks (RNWK: down $0.13 to $6.22, Research, Estimates). Other charter members not directly involved in the technology industry include Bank of America, General Motors and United Airlines.
Members of the group, which was formed in late September, are expected to meet later this week and begin laying the groundwork for the new system.
Microsoft's Passport system is a key part of Microsoft's .NET strategy through which it is trying to extend its software franchise onto the Internet.
The Passport system -- which Microsoft (MSFT: up $0.21 to $64.98, Research, Estimates) has tied to its newest operating system, Windows XP -- stores computer users' log-in names, passwords and other information to make Web navigation and e-commerce seamless. The company claims more than 300 websites now use Passport.
Microsoft's rivals have criticized the Passport system, citing security and privacy concerns and claiming that Microsoft is trying to use its dominance in computer operating systems to corner the market for authentication services.
An AOL spokesman said Tuesday the Liberty Alliance's approach is a better one because it encourages competition and consumer choice and protects privacy and security.
In fact, the spokesman said, the Liberty Alliance would encourage Microsoft to join the coalition.
"If Microsoft joined this system, we believe it would be a key signal that they would be moving away from their efforts to leverage their monopoly and control this space," he said.
But Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft's .NET group, said there's nothing to join.
Microsoft acknowledges that the issues the Liberty Alliance will be taking up at its meetings are important ones because authentication systems will be critical element of increased Web-based services. But so far, the Liberty Alliance has offered no solutions, Sohn said.
"We're very ready and willing to engage in industry discussion around this," he said.
"But, to date, the Liberty Alliance has delivered no technology at all," Sohn added. "It's just delivered a bunch of statements by Microsoft competitors that somehow some unannounced technology is better than proprietary technology, when in fact Passport is totally on path, announced in public to embrace an open industry standard that anybody can implement on."
In September, Microsoft said it will extend its Passport authentication service to other Web site operators and companies by supporting Kerberos 5.0, an open authentication standard developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
By making Passport compatible with other Kerberos-based authentication systems, Sohn argued it really is no different than the authentication system AOL is developing, which it calls Magic Carpet.
AOL also has two existing authentication services. Its Screen Name service allows users to register and sign into participating websites with a single screen name and password. The other, called QuickCheckout, offers AOL subscribers one step-checkout services from participating e-commerce providers.
And despite its competitors' suggestions to the contrary, Sohn said Microsoft in not aiming to become the dominant supplier of authentication services.
"We need single sign-on on the Internet for a new generation of Web services. That's critical to our business," he said. "It is not critical to our business that we're the only one providing that authentication." 
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