By Jacqui Cheng
July 23, 2008 - 01:30PM CT

MySpace announced this morning that it has joined the OpenID alliance as a provider, freeing millions of MySpace logins to be used across other OpenID-compatible websites. MySpace hopes that, by adopting OpenID, it will help users avoid having to sign up for handfuls of web accounts with different logins and passwords, although users of other OpenID logins won't be able to use them with MySpace just yet.

OpenID is a movement aimed at establishing a safe, secure, and standards-based single sign-on framework for use across the Internet. The initiative allows people to sign in and access multiple websites with a single username. Unlike certain earlier initiatives such as Microsoft's Passport, however, OpenID does not store all end-user information in a single centralized data server.

An OpenID user with a Yahoo account, for example, could enter his OpenID (JohnDoe@yahoo.com) at any web site where the authentication standard is supported. JohnDoe would then be redirected to a secure Yahoo server and asked to enter his Yahoo login and password. The tricky part is that websites that are part of the OpenID initiative are either providers or relying parties, or both, and the decision is entirely up to each site.

An OpenID login and password created at MySpace (a provider only) can't be used at Yahoo (another provider only), but OpenIDs from both MySpace and Yahoo could be used at Plaxo (a relying party). MySpace's senior VP of technology, Jim Benedetto, told Reuters that that it would "consider" also becoming a relying party in the future.