Microsoft Declares Passport a Failure
l33tdawg: Much thanks to burningfire for the heads up on this story.
Microsoft is abandoning one of its most controversial attempts to dominate the Internet after rival companies banded together to oppose it and consumers failed to embrace it.
The Redmond software company said Wednesday it would stop trying to persuade Web sites to use its Passport service, which stores consumers' credit-card and other information as Internet users surf from place to place.
The acknowledgment came after eBay posted a notice on its site Wednesday, saying it would drop Passport in late January and rely on its own service.
eBay, Passport's most visible backer , was among the first companies to adopt it, with great fanfare, in 2001.
Another early backer, Monster Worldwide's job-hunting site, Monster.com, dropped Passport in October.
Passport probably drew few new customers to Microsoft products. But initially it was seen as strategically important because it could have helped Microsoft be in the middle of most electronic transactions.
It would keep track of credit-card numbers and passwords as people moved from Web site to Web site.
