According to a report by Peter Williams[1], the U.S. real estate industry appears to have decided to adopt OpenID Connect for Web API authentication. I did not know this, but the real estate industry is the largest sector in the United States by GDP. In the 2014 statistics from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis[2], it accounts for 13% of GDP. The 2nd-largest sector is government, at 12.9%.
(Source) Chart by the author based on figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis
According to Williams’s report above, after a “5-year” review[3], the real estate standards group decided to retire its custom OAuth profile and standardize on OpenID Connect. Support from Microsoft and Amazon seems to have been the deciding factor, making adoption extremely easy.
Cal Heldenbrand said:
Kudos to everyone. This is a big win for standards in general, and especially for standards that are easy to use and highly interoperable. I cannot say enough about how much more enjoyable it has been to work with OpenID Connect than with SAML.[3]
Well, that may be praising it a little too much (sweat).
[1] Peter Williams, “Realty adoption,” http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-general/2015-June/020812.html
[2] U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Gross-Domestic-Product-(GDP)-by-Industry Data,” http://www.bea.gov/industry/gdpbyind_data.htm, “GDP by Industry / VA, GO, II 1997-2014: 71 Industries (XLSX)”
[3] Although Cal Heldenbrand says, “No, it was 20 minutes, actually” lol. http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-general/2015-June/020813.html
Related posts
On May 19, I Will Deliver a Keynote at EIC 2026 in Berlin, Titled “When Software Becomes Staff: Governance, Security & Safety for Agentic AI”
On the first day of EIC 2026, I will deliver the keynote “When Software Becomes Staff: Governance, Security & Safety for Agentic AI.”
I Will Appear on the Okinawa Open Days Panel “Current and Future OSS Initiatives in Economic Security”
It is already the day of the event—in fact, I am writing this now (12/4 9:45) at my desk while preparing for the panel—but I will…
We Submitted Public Comments on the FSA’s Proposed Partial Amendments to the “Comprehensive Guidelines for Supervision of Financial Instruments Business Operators, etc.”
The U.S.-based OpenID Foundation submitted the following public comments on the Proposed Partial Amendments to the “Comprehensive Guidelines for Supervision of Financial Instruments Business Operators, etc.”…
You must be logged in to post a comment.