Ping Identity today announced the availability of SignOn.com beta, a new Internet service designed to provide individuals with better control, security and privacy over their identity on the Internet. Signon.com allows individuals to create a single account they can use to securely sign on to any OpenID enabled Web site, eliminating the need for multiple usernames, passwords and profiles. It includes several features designed to secure OpenID interactions including support for Microsoft Windows CardSpace.

A SignOn.com account can be setup in less than a minute and provides individuals with a personalized OpenID identifier. This single account can be used for login to hundreds of OpenID-enabled Web sites. Companies like AOL, Sun, Yahoo and Wikipedia have already announced their support for OpenID.

Unlike other OpenID providers, SignOn.com includes several capabilities designed to secure OpenID interactions. One of these enhancements is the addition of Information Cards for strong authentication. With this feature, users with Windows CardSpace installed can use a personal information card to authenticate to any OpenID enabled website. The use of information cards and the Windows CardSpace client for stronger card-based authentication effectively eliminates the possibility of password phishing.

SignOn.com builds upon Ping Identity’s five years of experience in delivering highly secure Internet-scale identity management software to corporations and government agencies. Its federated identity management software allows organizations to control, protect and secure identity information they exchange with business partners. Now that individuals are discovering they also need this control and security, SignOn.com provides them a free way of doing so.

“People are just now beginning to realize the Internet is an inherently hostile environment. With organized crime syndicates focused on consumer identity theft, it’s imperative that as an industry we work together to develop the standards, tools and services which can help safeguard ones use of identity on the Internet,” said Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity Corporation. “The security and user-experience by which these services will give better control over privacy needs time to evolve and harden. We believe that time is now.”

“We believe the Information Card support will help improve the consumers’ online experience by extending the security and convenience benefits of the Identity Metasystem to SignOn.com users,” said Kim Cameron, Chief Identity Architect at Microsoft. “Microsoft is working with the industry to improve the trustworthiness of the Internet through phishing-resistant Information Card implementations, including Windows CardSpace.”

In related news, Ping Identity also announced today it will be contributing a generic Information Cards relying party C library to the open source community. This new toolkit will be available in Q3 2007 on Microsoft CodePlex. It is designed to be easily integrated into web servers and content management platforms so they can accept Windows CardSpace self-asserted Information Cards.

Ping Identity will also be adding support for Windows CardSpace and OpenID to its commercial software products in the near future.

Pricing and Availability
The beta version of SignOn.com is now available at www.SignOn.com. The service is free. For more information, please visit SignOn.com, contact Ping Identity toll-free at + 1 877.898.2905 or +1 303.468.2882, or email sales@pingidentity.com.

About Ping Identity Corporation
Ping Identity is uniquely dedicated to delivering Internet-Scale Identity management software and services to organizations and individuals worldwide. Over 100 large enterprises, service providers and government agencies rely on award-winning PingFederate, the industry benchmark for standards-based federated identity management, to secure, protect and control their identity interactions with other organizations. Now, SignOn.com brings these same capabilities to individuals. For more information, please visit www.pingidentity.com.