Google’s cooking up some new identification technology using the old school FINGER protocol. Al though I love the idea, I think its a little short sighted to attach identities to people email addresses. At least ones for services like gmail, hotmail, etc. Maybe Google thinks you’ll always want your gmail address, or that with a service like this youll never be able to afford to get rid of it. Either way, I don’t like being truly beholden to Google for anything. I use Google Reader to post to this blog, but I don’t have to. I use Google Voice, but I could use Skype or another competing service. Defining your identity @gmail.com in my mind doesn’t solve anything. It may move the ball down the field, but its a stopgap. Maybe that’s all they want it to be, until people understand OpenID more.