Facebook Button is Disappearing From Websites as Consumers Demand Better Privacy (cnbc.com) 36
Until about a month ago, shoppers on Dell's website looking for a new laptop could log in using their Facebook credentials to avoid creating a new username and password. That option is now gone. Dell isn't alone. CNBC: Other big brands, including Best Buy, Ford Motor, Pottery Barn, Nike, Patagonia, Match and Amazon's video-streaming service Twitch have removed the ability to sign on with Facebook. It's a marked departure from just a few years ago, when the Facebook login was plastered all over the internet, often alongside buttons that let you sign in with Google, Twitter or LinkedIn. Jen Felch, Dell's chief digital and chief information officer, said people stopped using social logins, for reasons that include concerns over security, privacy and data-sharing.
"We really just looked at how many people were choosing to use their social media identity to sign in, and that just has shifted over time," Felch said. "One thing that we see across the industry is more and more security risks or account takeovers, whether that's Instagram or Facebook or whatever it might be, and I just think we're observing people making a decision to isolate that social media account versus having other connections to it." The disappearing login is the latest sign of Facebook's diminishing influence on the internet following more than a decade of spectacular growth. In the past year, the company's business has been beset by Apple's iOS privacy change, which made it harder to target ads, a deteriorating economy, competition from short-video service TikTok, and reputational damage after a whistleblower leaked documents showing Facebook knew of the harm caused by many of its products.
"We really just looked at how many people were choosing to use their social media identity to sign in, and that just has shifted over time," Felch said. "One thing that we see across the industry is more and more security risks or account takeovers, whether that's Instagram or Facebook or whatever it might be, and I just think we're observing people making a decision to isolate that social media account versus having other connections to it." The disappearing login is the latest sign of Facebook's diminishing influence on the internet following more than a decade of spectacular growth. In the past year, the company's business has been beset by Apple's iOS privacy change, which made it harder to target ads, a deteriorating economy, competition from short-video service TikTok, and reputational damage after a whistleblower leaked documents showing Facebook knew of the harm caused by many of its products.
Like! (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry.
Dear Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
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Joe Public know what's good for him (Score:3)
18 years too late, but he knows eventually.
The biggest risk of SSO is SSO (Score:3)
SSO has always had the risk. One credential that works everywhere is incredibly convenient.
When the single credential is tightly controlled and carefully managed it can be great for easily managed security. But when use and control become lax it is a massive vulnerability. Unfortunately the masses are extremely lax.
Mozilla Should Do This. (Score:2)
The Mozilla foundation should do this. It would be an SSO that could be portable, and a great deal more trustworthy, you know, if they do not get dodgy about it.
Re:Mozilla Should Do This. (Score:4, Informative)
The Mozilla foundation should do this. It would be an SSO that could be portable, and a great deal more trustworthy, you know, if they do not get dodgy about it.
They did, it was called Persona [wikipedia.org], then shut down the service in 2016, citing low adoption rates.
Who knew? (Score:2)
People don't want their privacy raped by a Privacy Rapist.
Not just Facebook (Score:3)
It's about time (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
We honestly need some open source blockchain method of establishing identity on the web
So that when your identity gets stolen, you can never get it back?
I understand why blockchain benefits things like land ownership records. I'm not sure why it benefits user logins. It seems like we have good protocols for this already, there is just a lack of universal support for protocols that include all the desired use cases; eg, both app 2FA and key 2FA
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No, the real reason is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook started rejecting old Facebook apps that didn't resubmit the app every 3 months. I dropped Facebook login support a couple of years ago because Facebook started getting more and more obnoxious about Facebook apps and I eventually decided to drop the app altogether. It's not worth the hassle having to resubmit a Facebook app for approval every 3 months just so users can have the convenience to login with their Facebook account. It's not like the app was doing anything critical either: Retrieving first name, last name, and email address. That's it. No demographic data or anything significantly personal and the email address was never abused in any way.
Facebook shot themselves in the foot here.
The other problem is that Google fundamentally broke SSO logins on Android last year. Now devs have to jump through a bunch of crazy hoops just to do a seamless Google account login. It's not worth the app rewrite as most devs already have "app rewrite fatigue." With Google and Facebook SSO effectively dead, Twitter SSO never delivering email addresses (making Twitter pointless/useless as a SSO), and almost no one using LinkedIn SSO, the concept of SSO is still fine (e.g. Okta is dominating in the space) but all the major social media players have managed to find ways to ruin their respective implementations.
Re: No, the real reason is... (Score:1)
The whole point of an SSO is to prevent the site you are logging in to from having your email. If you trust them with email, log in with that. Many sites should not be trusted with email.
What the user wants is to log in with something that doesn't transmit a sensitive password (which the shitbird website will store in plaintext and get hacked) or an email (which will be used to sell stuff, and if the site has a policy against spam, then they will either go out of business and be forced to sell their maili
The irony of reading the original story on cnbc (Score:3)
THE FACEBOOK BUTTON ITSELF!
That being said, count me among the slim minority who never uses social credentials to log onto any other web sites. Never really could bring myself to trust it.
Haven't seen one in years... (Score:2)
...thanks to uBlock Origin.
Thanks uBlock Origin!!!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm also using uMatrix, so I double-don't-see-them.
won't make a difference (Score:3)
It was just collecting the same info the like buttons and other features facebook already has in the pages. It was not needed
Probem, meet Solution. And Problem. (Score:2)
"shoppers on Dell's website looking for a new laptop could log in using their Facebook credentials to avoid creating a new username and password."
If consumers are actually demanding better privacy (as opposed to simply cancelling Facebook for a myriad of reasons), then Dell should wake the hell up here and start asking themselves; Why are we demanding our customers create a username and password?
The Facebook button was put there to solve a problem. Removing it, does jack shit for that problem, or the problem of privacy if Dell is just as abusive with your personal information. Or anyone else for that matter.
User support cases that use order history (Score:2)
Why are we demanding our customers create a username and password?
As I understand it, establishing a user account on a shopping site such as Lenovo or Dell allows for use cases such as "View my previous orders," "Find a replacement rechargeable battery compatible with a laptop computer that I purchased," and "Start a support request for a computer that I purchased."
Re: User support cases that use order history (Score:2)
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Every single Dell shipped for decades, came with a unique number that was tied to the specific chassis and build. This number, allowed any random person to visit Dell's support pages, and cover almost every scenario you've mentioned here.
Has that identifier and process changed now? Does Dell "need" your personal information in order to initiate basic requests for support? If so, then perhaps we should ask why this has changed. And to my original point, ensure that Dell would actually protect your perso
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It's a shortcut in case the ink has worn off the service tag sticker, which has happened on one Dell laptop that I have owned.
People actually did this? (Score:2)
Really? They actually did this? And Google too, I see those options...?
Wow, stupid.
Facebook logins are getting a well deserved death. (Score:2)
The button may disappear, but not the code (Score:2)
The code that sends your info to Facebook is likely to hang around, even if the visible button is gone. I'm not sure this is an improvement.
Dangerous social-media (Score:3)
A few weeks ago, I browsed the internet while logged into Facebook: Nothing worked. On every web-site, the first thing any piece of JavaScript did, was tell Facebook which button/link I had clicked. My privacy watchdog then identified that JavaScript thread as malware and killed it. It was a lesson on which social-media giant is the most dangerous (hint, it's not TikTok).
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A few weeks ago, I browsed the internet while logged into Facebook: Nothing worked.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
It withered away ... (Score:2)
Or (Score:2)
Goodbye FB (Score:2)