Last night Eric Sachs, for the Google Security Team, announced in an official blog post that Google will be providing limited access to an API supporting OpenID, a framework allowing users to adopt a single nickname and password combination to seamlessly login into an array of different websites, a technology that both Yahoo! and Microsoft have already deployed on their respective websites.

Using the API, webmasters will be able to allow users to access their sites directly through Google's OpenID, without the need for their visitors to register to the site itself in order to access the features available to registered users only. The result is an improved overall security for the end users, who is less likely to be subject to a data theft, and a much more convenient way to access different websites.

Sachs further explains in his blog post:

"The initial version of the API will use the OpenID 2.0 protocol to enable websites to validate the identity of a Google Account user, including the optional ability to request the user's e-mail address [...] If the user enters a Gmail address and indicates that he or she does not have a password for this site, then the site can redirect him or her to Google and asked to confirm whether he or she wants to sign in [...] Finally, the user would be redirected back to [the original website], where he or she would be immediately signed in."

Microsoft and Yahoo! currently use the OpenID framework to allow their users to access to third-party websites with which they have reached an agreement: owners of a Microsoft Live Mail, Yahoo!, and now also Google account will be able access sites such as AOL, MySpace, Plaxo, Zoho and potentially all the others implementing the OpenID platform as a relying party without the need for registration. Microsoft in particular announced on Monday that it will adopt the platform on Windows Live, and Google's declaration was soon to follow.

Since it would seem that Google will eventually implement the feature as a provider rather than a relying party, it won't be possible to login to the Yahoo! or Microsoft website with a Google account, and vice versa. Of all the sites that are already accessible through Yahoo! and Microsoft's OpenIDs, Zoho — an online office suite including tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking and other — and Plaxo — a popular address book and social networking platform — have already agreed to offer Google users the possibility to login through OpenID.

According to an article appeared on TechCrunch, "AOL and MySpace are expected to jump aboard as OpenID providers as well": some competition to OpenID might come from Facebook, which might resist making the change as well and rely on its in-house product, "Facebook Connect", instead. So far, even if based on very similar concepts, the Facebook platform for open logins hasn't proven as successful as hoped, which might eventually force their decision to deploy OpenID as well.

A usability research recently published on Yahoo!'s website underlines how many users simply don't understand the concept behind OpenID nor what its logo stands for. Google and its partners will likely take a route similar to that of Yahoo!, putting its own brand beside the one of OpenID and, in a way, exploiting the platform to promote its brand even more.

Google also announced that the company is currently seeking support from the open source software community to combine the benefits of OAuth and OpenID, so that a service can not only request a user's identity through OpenID, but also "request access to information available via OAuth-enabled APIs such as Google Data APIs".

The effect that both Google and Microsoft hope to sort with their latest announcement is to get a growing number of webmasters to offer OpenID access to their sites and make the user experience smoother and more convenient for their respective users, who wouldn't have to store or memorize a growing number of user id-password combinations, but rather only the one provided by Google or Microsoft's service.