Liberty Alliance Adds 11 MembersLiberty Alliance Adds 11 Members

The Liberty Alliance Project, an industry group formed last year to develop open specifications to authorize individuals for online transactions, revealed 11 new members Tuesday and said it will release the first version of its specifications by the middle of the year.

The group's work will produce a behind-the-scenes infrastructure for merchants and service providers to pitch their customers joint offers, says Eric Dean, chairman of the alliance and CIO of United Airlines. The goal is to stimulate E-commerce: An airline linking its customer log-in system with that of a rental car company is the logical first step. Eventually, a clothier could join with an airline to offer frequent-flier miles to its shoppers.

"One set of standards is crucial for entering into these commercial arrangements," Dean says. That way, the consumer, once his identity is confirmed, would only have to sign in once as he moves across different Web sites, and companies could use their existing software to follow the interoperability specs yet to be written. Consumers would elect to enroll in the new service, to allay privacy concerns. "This is not some new security system off in the sky somewhere," he says.

New members ActivCard, Catavault, EarthLink, EDS, Nextel, OneName, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Register.com, SchlumbergerSema, VeriSign, and Visa International join existing members such as American Express, AOL Time Warner, Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, France Telecom, General Motors, Mastercard International, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, and Sabre. There are now 38 members of the Liberty Alliance.