FaceBook never one to neither rest on its laurels nor think that there isn't any world they can't conquer now is attempting to get users to use FaceBook as a way to sign up for sites and services on line. This goes far beyond just allowing you to sign into a site using your FaceBook password. Using the this new feature it's possible to use FaceBook more like a forms filler so that you can set up accounts and join new sites.
This means that users would have to have all of their information in FaceBook and up to date to use it. And of course it requires that you trust FaceBook to fill out such forms and to guard what for a lot of users is more than they currently share with FaceBook or that they might list incorrectly just to protect themselves.
Again FaceBook is making a move on taking over more of the internet and becoming a tool for filling forms outside of FaceBook with information provided by the user. And while this takes the users permission it raises the questions of do users and other web sites want a more intrusive FaceBook? Do the users trust FaceBook to not use this to slowly move into other areas of form filling and password management?
I think the answer will be no for most users. And as a web site owner I know that I don't like FaceBook pushing for even more power outside of FaceBook. On the one hand they guard and horde their user information unless you can pay the price while on the other they want sites to share everything with them.
Even worse is that to use FaceBook to enter the data needed to set up access to another site or service means that you have to expose the site name, location, and the password you establish with FaceBook.
I don't know about you but I don't want FaceBook to know the sites outside of FaceBook I go to. That's one of the things I already don't like about the "like" button on sights. To click it only allows FaceBook to track my on line movements and give them a list of what I like.
And it’s why I never use my FaceBook logon at the logon for another site unless I have to. That way my passwords are different and FaceBook doesn’t have my password for the other site. With their history of selling anything and everything to the highest bidder that's only being prudent in my opinion.
But the question becomes just how many will FaceBook lure into this latest information trap? How many will take the easy way out and use FaceBook even thought they have NO reason to trust how they will handle all of the new information they will be gathering about them?
I can only hope users smell the rat and avoid using FaceBook to proved any services that they can do better and safer themselves. Remember if you chose to make forms filling, password management, and bookmarks easier to manage programs like RoboForm and your browser (Not as safe or as recommended as RoboForm but better than trusting FaceBook.) work well and they are both much safer and secure from FaceBook’s prying eyes.
Facebook’s new login for the Web could ruffle feathers
Facebook has launched a new registration tool that lets website developers provide a quick and easy way for users to sign up using their data from Facebook.
The tool, a counterpart to Facebook Login, involves customizing and inserting a small amount of code into a website’s pages, which then operates as a signup form.
Website developers can ask for specific fields required for an account (for example: name, birthday, gender, location, email), or add custom fields and dropdowns of their own. All the information contained by Facebook is automatically filled into these fields, which users hand over to the website when they click “Register.” If the website doesn’t require a Facebook account to signup, the form can also operate as a standalone signup form.
At a time when every website seems to work with its own signup process, the move comes as an attempt by Facebook to simplify matters for consumers. But at the same time, Facebook has everything to gain by acting as the middleman for signups and having more Web developers work with Facebook’s code.
Is this good for users? Facebook is essentially asking its users to allow it to hand over their data to third-party sites. It serves a longstanding goal of Facebook, which is to get users to use one consistent and real identity — their Facebook identity — across the Web.
But users may rebel. Most trust Facebook with their birthdays, for example, because it allows their friends to shower them with birthday greetings, but may hesitate at entering their real birthday to an unknown website. And Facebook, not that site, will face the backlash.
In a year when every other Facebook announcement seems to have instigated a privacy backlash, one wonders about the kind of response this announcement will generate as websites begin incorporating it. There’s surely mischief that can be accomplished with it. As Facebook spreads its wings even further, which new feathers will it ruffle?
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