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I have a strange feeling this has been asked before. Oh well, in the worst case, I'll delete this post. ;)

But seriously, I had an OpenID and changed so I used the New Login to add the new. The old OpenID is deprecated (it was a delegate from my old website which is now closed). Not that there is really a need for this, but just for a more "clean" profile, I would like to remove the alternative (since I know I won't be using it in the future).

So, How can I delete the alternative OpenID?

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  • 2
    +1 in comment since I can't vote up on MSO. Want it too!
    – CharlesB
    Commented Jun 4, 2010 at 11:55
  • The UserVoice website appears to be deprecated, and instructs visitors to go here. Will the MSO team presume upvotes to this question/answer to be a "vote" for the implied feature request??
    – anon
    Commented Sep 6, 2010 at 22:05
  • +1 I use used my own domain as a delegate, but I'm closing that host and need to remove the OpenID in all Stack places. I guess I'll have to go with adding a 2nd OpenID to push out my old domain :(
    – John Warlow
    Commented Oct 19, 2010 at 10:18
  • I changed openId providers and would no longer like to use my old one. It's silly I can't just delete it, even if not a lot of people would use this feature. This should be implemented.
    – Peter
    Commented Jan 4, 2011 at 9:28
  • 1
    They remove your alternate manually if you ask them to at team at stack overflow dot c o m
    – 700 Software
    Commented Jan 13, 2011 at 17:58

6 Answers 6

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+200

After our next deploy there will be a (delete) link next to alternative OpenIds.

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  • But this has not been rolled out for all users? I could see that I dont have the delete button on the stackexchange my logins page.
    – Srinath G S
    Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 7:55
  • This answers dates back from 2011 - I still can't remove OpenIDs. Any update?
    – klauspeter
    Commented Nov 17, 2013 at 10:52
  • @klauspeter if you've got more than 1 linked OpenID, you should see remove links in the My Logins popup.
    – Kevin Montrose
    Commented Nov 17, 2013 at 20:54
37

For what it's worth, this is really a security issue, not just a matter of convenience or completeness.

Say for example I go with TrustworthyOpenIdProvider.com for all my OpenID needs for the past 5 years, and then it turns out that they're actually a band of no-good nasty dangerous criminals who set up the site as a front to do evil.

Well then, I'd want to immediately disassociate all my accounts with this nefarious organization. Of course, you could say that the solution is to use an OpenID delegate so that you never have to change your stated provider. But that just adds a layer of indirection -- it doesn't solve the underlying problem. What if, for example, the site where I host my delegation is the one that is taken over by bandits?

The thing is that since the login system trusts the listed OpenID provider unconditionally. The ability to remove your OpenID provider has the very same security implications as the ability to change your password on traditional sites.

You wouldn't say to a user who wanted to change his password that he should have just used a better password to begin with. I would have expected this feature to be there. In fact, I was so certain that it would have been implemented that I actually had to go try it out myself just to make sure before writing this response.

Would a site this tech-savvy really have forgotten the feature to allow you to change your password? Certainly you can't argue that it's unnecessary.

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10

The lack of this feature is laughable. How hard is it to provide a 'remove' link that deletes the OpenID association?

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  • And now that the feature has been implemented this 'answer' is the one looking laughable, years after the fact.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 1, 2014 at 17:38
7

From the SO blog in January, swapping the primary and alternate OpenIDs, then adding another alternate will push the first alternate, which used to be your primary, down the list, eventually getign rid of it when you hit the max number of alternates.

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  • 3
    I find it quite a bad idea suggesting to people to create a dummy OpenID account just for one site and for this action. I have one OpenID and don't intend to having another. Even if I ever close the account, I will open just one again. I believe that is the whole idea of having an OpenID. One password for all websites.
    – pek
    Commented Sep 10, 2009 at 7:03
  • 1
    not suggesting a 'dummy' OpenID - I have my yahoo and google accounts linked here
    – warren
    Commented Sep 10, 2009 at 15:03
  • 2
    This is it - the way to "remove" an alternate OpenID is to overwrite it with a replacement. This is to encourage you to make sure you have a valid good way to access the site in case one OpenID provider is unavailable (which has happened).
    – Joel Coehoorn
    Commented Jan 11, 2011 at 21:15
1

I would very much like to be able to do this. I merged two accounts, so the two OpenIDs are associated to the same account, and I would like to be able to remove one of them so that it can be used for another account (it's a long story).

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  • 2
    Send an email to team at stack overflow dot c o m. They can remove the alternate OpenID manually for you.
    – 700 Software
    Commented Jan 12, 2011 at 14:03
0

Well, I think I can do this for you on MSO and SO (but not SU / SF). It seems an unusual request, and I'm not in a hurry to do it... does it cause any harm?

Actually, I would suggest a better alternative; find an alternative (backup) OpenID provider you do like in case your primary is unavailable - since you mention "my old website", I assume you mean you were your own OpenID provider? Maybe you want to ask (on SF/SO) a question about repairing your broken OpenID server ;-p

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  • No, "my old website" is a website I had (domain name etc.) which I used OpenID.delegate to my OpenID provider. I'm in now rush nor this is causing anything. The question is more like a feature-request than a support question. It would be quite handy it there was a button to simply remove the association. But in anycase, just removing it from SO is good enough. Thank you. ;)
    – pek
    Commented Sep 2, 2009 at 22:59
  • I doubt it would see much use...
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Sep 2, 2009 at 23:25
  • 5
    Whether or not it see's much use, it HAS to be there in the interest of security.
    – tylerl
    Commented Sep 3, 2009 at 23:03

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