I recently came across this interesting specification for XML User Profiles that suggests a new method for holding user account information for reuse by different web sites and applications. XUP summarizes meta data about persons to describe their online identity and also includes a specification for a centralized password service which immediately brings up the issue of privacy loss…

Anybody allowing meta data about himself to be put out machine-parseable, as with this format, obviously may suffer from complete privacy loss; but there are a few advantages in using it. You still have full control about how much information to give out, and you only need to write it once and then probably don’t have to sign up for accounts over and over again, because a centralized password and login service is part of this specification.

Both comments and pings are currently closed.