STERLING, Va., June 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cordance, the corporate administrator for the i-names global namespace, and NeuStar, Inc. , a provider of essential clearinghouse services to the communications and Internet industry, today announced a significant reduction of over 40% in the wholesale price for an =name/i-number combination.
"We are reducing the price of personal i-names to make these easy-to-use, secure digital identifiers more accessible to current and future OpenID users," said Vince Caluori, CEO of Cordance. "We believe the distinct advantages of i-names will contribute to making OpenID a universally adopted framework for Internet identity."
OpenID is a new open standard protocol for Web single sign-on. With an OpenID identifier, an end user does not need to register a new username and password for every website. Instead, he or she can present an OpenID identifier, and the website then contacts the user's OpenID service provider to verify the user's login. The user's password or other authentication credential stays safely stored with their trusted OpenID service provider.
Personal i-names (in the form of "=name") are ideal for use as OpenID identifiers because they not only are very simple for people to remember and type, but they are automatically mapped to a persistent "i-number" that will never be reassigned to another registrant. This is a key security feature of the Extensible Resource Identifier (XRI) specifications from OASIS on which i- names are based. "Automatic mapping of i-names to i-numbers means individuals will never have to worry about their personal account information being compromised or their OpenID identifier being 'recycled' to another registrant," continued Caluori.
Cordance's Chief Technology Officer Drummond Reed added, "In addition to OpenID, the i-name and XRI architecture can be leveraged by all user-centric identity technologies, including the OASIS SAML 2.0 (Security Assertion Markup Language) standard used by Liberty Alliance and the WS-Trust architecture used by Microsoft CardSpace."
The price reduction will make personal i-names as affordable as personal domain names, while providing stronger safety and privacy protections. I-names can be internationalized, as well; English/Latin, Chinese, Japanese and Korean character sets are available.
"I-name registration automatically includes the strongest form of privacy protection available from any global registry service, and does so at no extra charge," concluded Caluori.
No change is being made to the pricing of business i-names ("@name") at this time. Links to all participating i-brokers and further information about the services they provide are available at http://www.inames.net/ .
About Cordance
Cordance is the original innovator of XRI technology and administrator of the i-name Global Registry Service under contract by XDI.org, the international non-profit public trust organization chartered to govern open, community-based XRI and XDI infrastructure. More information about i-names and services that use i-name digital addresses can be found at http://www.inames.net/.
About NeuStar
NeuStar is a provider of essential clearinghouse services to the North American communications industry and Internet service providers around the world. Visit NeuStar online at http://www.neustar.biz/.
