Microsoft Passport loses another biggie in eBay

Microsoft’s technology for identity-management on the Internet in the form of Passport took another major beating today when eBay announced that they are discontinuing their support for it. Users of eBay would not be able to use their Passport Ids to login to eBay starting late January. This news comes just after a few months another major online portal in Monster.com dropped support for Passport from their online job website.

These defections are raising questions on what would be the future of the Passport technology. eBay would be replacing the login using Passport links with pages directing the user on authenticating their identity online.

Also taking a beating in this news update is the MSN Messenger .Net News Alerts. eBay said that they would discontinue support for alerts through this service. Customers could however still use alerts on mobile or email. eBay also has their own toolbar for their services, which would be working as well for the same facilities.

Experts believe eBay took this step noticing that Microsoft is no longer making investment in the Passport initiative. In addition, competition is growing fast with standards developed by Liberty Alliance getting popular amongst e-transaction websites.