[DotGNU]Login provider slamming.

[Ron Burk]

> all though that is a scarry thought, I would think
> that an action of that sort would be conidered
> steeling and the information was moved wothout the
> person's knowledge. M$ is not that stupid.

In what sense is it stealing? The customer freely elected
to give their data to web site X. Web site X freely elected
to run a version of Passport that supports the dotGNU
standard. Virtually no web sites provide any guarantee about
where or how they'll store the data you give them, so
the fact that the data is stored on a centralized Microsoft
server rather than the machine belonging to web site X
violates no understanding (many web sites already rely
on third-party companies to handle things like credit
card acceptance and storage).

That would probably be enough -- Microsoft can profit from
having an increase in the # of customers storing data on
the central Passport servers. However, I don't see any
reason why they could not go ahead and pop up a dialog
the next time the customer goes to web site X: "Would you
like to use Passport to login to this site from now on?".
Maybe even offer them a coupon to do so. How would
that be any different than the longstanding "would you
like to make IE your default browser?" dialog?

I can't see that this is stealing, nor can I see significant
motivation for Microsoft to not do it, should a dotGNU
standard become popular among web sites. Heck,
they can claim they're doing it because they "support
open standards.", showing their dedication to provide
the customer with "choices".

Ron Burk
HighTechInfo.com, www.hightechinfo.com