A system, method and computer program product for providing unified authentication services in an Application Service Provider (ASP) setting to a registered end-user of one or more online (or web) applications. The system includes client side components, a user management component coupled to the client side components and server side components coupled to the user management component. The client side components include an authentication control component that manages the process of capturing a user-determined policy for a first account and user credentials. This allows the user to define the level of protection to access the first account. This includes, but is not limited to, accounts/applications that have been configured specifically for used with the system and particular user credentials and accounts that have been subsequently set up but configured to use the same user credentials. The client side components then communicate the result of capturing the user-determined policy and user credentials to the user management component. The user management component stores the user-determined policy and user credentials in a centralized location. In addition, the user management component organizes the user-determined policy and user credentials such that the user credentials can be reused for user authentication to a second account. Finally, the server side components include an authentication server. The user management component indicates to the authentication server to use the user-determined policy for user authentication to the first account.