For the past few years, Facebook has been flirting with the possibility of supporting the OpenID log-in standard, which calls itself “an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity” without actually building support for it.

Now, the massive social network–once famous for its ultra-walled-garden approach to data and user experience–announced Monday that it has become an OpenID “relying party,” which basically means that it’s started, at last, to deploy support for the standard. Facebook joined the OpenID Foundation in February, even though many considered its Facebook Connect log-in standard to be a proprietary competitor.

But, Monday’s announcement indicated, Facebook believes the two can work in tandem.

“We’ve always let our users express their real world connections,” a post on the Facebook blog read. “From the beginning, Facebook users could use their college and workplace identities to establish real world networks. Now, they can use open standards to establish their identities on Facebook.”

Most notably, you can now register for a Facebook account with your Gmail account, or can link an existing Facebook account with Gmail or other OpenID-participating services if they support automatic log-in.

A new, unpatched vulnerability exists in one of Microsoft’s server products, the company warned late Monday.

In a technical bulletin, the company said it is looking into “public reports of a possible vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).”

The company said that a flaw exists in a certain type of Web serving operation.

“An elevation of privilege vulnerability exists in the way that the WebDAV extension for IIS handles HTTP requests,” Microsoft said. “An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by creating a specially crafted anonymous HTTP request to gain access to a location that typically requires authentication.”

Microsoft said it is not aware of attacks using the vulnerability. The company said it may provide an update as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday or, depending on the severity, could provide a fix outside of its monthly patching schedule.

Digital music supplier Napster said on Monday it is slashing its monthly subscription price to $5 and adding downloads of songs to its streaming service in a bid to expand its customer base and compete with Apple Inc’s iTunes.

It is the latest attempt by Napster to take on iTunes, the dominant digital music leader, and its first major strategic move since being taken over by retailer Best Buy Co Inc last October.

Los Angeles-based Napster said users can now get unlimited access to stream music from its library of 7 million songs and five free songs for download every month for a subscription fee of $5. Previously, Napster had charged subscribers $12.99 for a streaming-only service.

Walt Disney Co on Tuesday launched a new website offering merchandise from its theme parks and resorts as the entertainment group seeks new revenue sources during a slump in business at Disneyland and other parks.

Shoppers can go to www.disneystore.com/ to buy more than 100 top-selling products like customized Mickey Mouse ears or other items that were previously only available at the parks and resorts, the company said.