MasterCard, HP, Others Join Liberty Alliance

The Liberty Alliance last week added several companies, including Hewlett-Packard and MasterCard International Inc., to its management board, boosting its effort to create a global standard digital identity protocol. The standard is intended to make business and personal transactions conducted over the Internet easier and more secure.

Five other companies have joined the board in recent weeks as founding members, including American Express, AOL Time-Warner, France Telecom, General Motors, and a yet-unnamed major commercial bank. Existing members are Bell Canada, Global Crossing, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Openwave Systems, RealNetworks, RSA Security, Sony, Sun Microsystems, United Airlines, and Vodafone.

But despite the new high-profile members, one big player is still missing: Microsoft. Its Passport service is the leader in digital identity management with more than 165 million accounts. Microsoft's participation could be key to the alliance's success, but there's been some question about whether it will join. "I think it will happen," says Tony Scott, chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. "I've been involved in some of the discussions, and I've been very encouraged by their interest."