The login system netID started on Thursday with 60 partner websites. On sites like Merkur.de, Sat1.de or Kabeleins.de as well as the online fashion shop Calida, users can in the future register with the same account once opened. The netID login button is highlighted on the websites in green color.
Around 35 million Internet users could log in with their existing Web.de, GMX and 7Pass accounts, according to netID. But you can also register with any e-mail address on the partner sites or directly on netid.de. In the latter case, you get an account that, according to the netID providers, this is decided randomly, either by ProSiebenSat.1, RTL or United Internet.
The three companies - United Internet includes Web.de and GMX - are the driving forces behind netID, they have been working on the system for some time. A German competitor is the login service Verimi, with partners such as Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Telekom, Volkswagen, Lufthansa and the media company Axel Springer.
What you should know before entering new data
If you log in to an online offer via netID, you will first see which of your own data will be made available to the provider upon login via netID. If necessary, however, further information, such as the address or the date of birth, will be requested. These then also appear in the root profile of netID.
We created a netID account via netID.de as a test, basically only needed an e-mail address and a password. However, if we wanted to use the account at fashion shop Calida, we also had to enter an address and a name. From then on, this data also appeared in the so-called "netID Privacy Center" of the original account - and that too after we had cut the netID link to the fashion shop again.
In the test, we were then no longer able to completely remove the information about our name - but we could change it as desired. The information on street, house number and place, however, could be deleted in the "Privacy Center".
Competition to US services
Sven Bornemann, CEO of the European netID Foundation, says that he wants to "expand rapidly" the offer of netID together with other partners of the system. According to the netID website, "soon" Zalando, the Otto Group, C & A and dpd are to expand the offering. The SPIEGEL publishing house and other media houses like the Süddeutsche Zeitung also want to cooperate with netID in the future.
NetID sees itself as a competitor to American platforms. For example, Facebook, Google and Twitter have long been offering their users the option of logging in to different pages with the respective account data.
In terms of additional security features, however, netID has lagged, for example, behind Google's service. As of Thursday, NetID has no option to additionally protect its login with two-factor authentication. This means: If someone seizes or experiences their own password, they could log in on behalf of the user on all pages connected to the netID account.
Google, on the other hand, can be set to not only ask for the password when logging in to third-party sites, but also for a code that is received via a mobile phone.