Re:Open Letter to Mozilla: Bring Back Persona
by something2324 on Friday December 25, 2015 @05:51AM
(#10790922)
"and Facebook can take them away from you at any time"
Have they actually done that to any website? That would undermine their whole system. They'd do that once and everyone would leave their service. That's like saying "Well Google could publish all your emails! So you definitely shouldn't trust your emails to Google"
Re:Open Letter to Mozilla: Bring Back Persona
by stickfigure on Wednesday December 30, 2015 @05:10AM
(#10811502)
Have they actually done that to any website? Absolutely. Facebook freezes application ids all the time, mostly for what you or I would consider "good reasons" (spam, fraud, abuse, etc). Has it ever happened for less noble reasons, or grey zones? Do you want to bet that this will never be the case? How long is your time horizon?
Facebook frequently freezes user accounts for all sorts of reasons. Maybe their name doesn't exactly match what's on their state issued ID. Maybe the art nude selfie they posted pissed off the censors. Maybe they expressed an unpopular political opinion. Maybe their name matches somebody on a sex offender list. Maybe they just got tripped up by an over-exuberant fraud bot.
I remember when Microsoft was the good guy and IBM was the bad guy. Things change.
As a website operator, these are no longer your users, they're Facebook's users, and Facebook can take them away from you at any time.
As a user, these are no longer your website accounts, they're Facebook's website accounts, and Facebook can take them away from you at any time.
Putting Facebook in complete control of identity is not healthy for anyone. At least when you get email addresses from Facebook, you can bootstrap an independent relationship with your customers if necessary. From the user's perspective: If Facebook blocks your account, the website operator can still validate your ownership with the email address.