Google says that the page was experimental and that there are better things on the horizon

Jan 17, 2012 12:21 GMT  ·  By

Google is always experimenting with new features, new products, new technologies. Experiments, by their definition, can fail. Granted, you don't hear about the failed ones all that often and what Google calls experiments is just user testing, a feature that needs to be tweaked before it's unleashed onto the world.

But sometimes Google experiments really are experiments and sometimes they get killed off. Case in point is the QR code login system that was discovered over the past couple of days.

The feature enabled users to log into their Google account on any computer without having to type the password, out of safety precautions or simple convenience.

As the web picked up on it, more and more people tried it out. It turns out, they were not supposed to. While the page was public, it was most likely designed to be tested internally by Googlers.

That's supported by the fact that the goto.google.com/login page redirected to accounts.google.com/sesame. goto.google.com asks for an @google.com account, which only Googlers have, not us mere mortals.

Soon after the page became popular, a notice was put in place warning users that this was an experimental page and that it could be gone at any minute. Of course, that's the type of thing Google would say in cases like this.

This time around, Google wasn't kidding as, in a manner of hours, the page was dead. Greeting visitors is now a simple message that the experiment has been shut down.

"Hi there - thanks for your interest in our phone-based login experiment. While we have concluded this particular experiment, we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms. Stay tuned for something even better!," Dirk Balfanz, Google Security Team, writes.

The QR code login experiment is dead for now. Perhaps Google was not yet confident in it to allow thousands or more users to login through it, potentially exposing their accounts to attacks. It is the most likely reason for its closure. However, Google did promise that it is working on something better, so there may be something on the horizon.