Passport Rebrand Planned

The next version of Passport, a Microsoft service that authenticates users to Web sites operated by Microsoft and a handful of its partners, will be renamed Windows Live ID and will support InfoCard, a new identity management system included with Windows Vista. The system will slightly reduce user hassle when accessing Windows Live sites and services—instead of entering a username and password, users will be able to submit an InfoCard ID by clicking a button. However, Microsoft is not attempting to turn Windows Live ID into a universal Web authentication service, as it once hoped to do with Passport.

Windows Live ID

Passport, which Microsoft bought in its 1998 acquisition of Firefly Technologies, originally had two components: Passport Single Sign-In, which allowed users to identify themselves to participating sites with an e-mail address and password, and Passport Express Purchase, which could store personal e-commerce information (such as a shipping address and credit card number) online, then submit this information to participating sites, saving manual reentry. Originally used on Microsoft sites only, Passport was later marketed as a solution for third-party sites. However, privacy concerns and lack of interest (or outright hostility) from third parties eventually forced Microsoft to scale back its plans for Passport—the company cancelled Express Purchase in 2002 and stopped marketing Single Sign-In to third parties in 2004. (For more details on Passport’s history, see “Passport Role Scaled Back” on page 19 of the Mar. 2004 Update.)