Passport Service Now Complete — Will It Fly?

An upgraded Passport megaservice will be available in April to third-party Web sites. Passport consists of two distinct services: a “wallet” that stores e-commerce information, such as credit card numbers and shipping addresses, and a Single Sign-In and Profile (SSI&P) service that allows users to enter personal data once and avoid the need to re-type the same information when visiting participating sites. The wallet service has been available to third-party sites since October; the April release will also offer SSI&P. The latter includes a new option, called Kids Passport, aimed at helping parents protect their children’s privacy online. Support by third-party Web sites is what will ultimately determine Passport’s success. Even as the complete package is rolled out, its prospects remain uncertain.

Seeking Critical Mass

Microsoft has been touting Passport as its first “megaservice,” an Internet-wide service based on the Windows platform that Microsoft can license to other Web sites. The company cites an impressive 52 million Passport holders. However, this figure does not reflect usage of the technology; all Hotmail users are automatically signed up for Passport even though they may barely be aware of it and their Passports contain a minimum of information. Although Passport is implemented where relevant throughout Microsoft’s online properties, third-party Web sites have been slow to adopt the service. Microsoft charges Web sites an annual service fee for the wallet and SSI&P services on a sliding scale based on the average unique visitors per month to the Web site. The only non-Microsoft high-traffic e-commerce sites currently listed on the official Passport directory are Buy.com and (“coming soon”) Barnes & Noble. Through Hotmail, Microsoft has reached a huge number of consumers, but without a sizeable collection of popular sites that support Passport, the service will have little utility to those consumers.