This is Why I Hate Facebook
This a reproduction from Dr, Rankin
Why You Should Never Login With Facebook
Category: Social-Networking
Mari Sherkin has been happily married for over 25 years, so she was more than a little surprised to learn she had a dating profile on matchmaking service Zoosk.com that she never created. Find out how it happened, and how it could easily happen to you...
What is OAuth, and Why Should You Care?
According to Mary, a popup ad on Facebook invited her to take a look at Zoosk. She says she didn’t want to, so she clicked the X in one corner of the ad to close it. But suddenly she was whisked to Zoosk.com’s home page; she wanted none of that, so she closed the browser window. Mere minutes later, she says, emails from Zoosk members began flooding her inbox, expressing interest in her Zoosk profile -- which Mary says she never created.
That profile included her name, Facebook profile picture, and postal code. Mary lives in a small town 2.5 hours from Toronto, and she is understandably concerned about the damage that could be done to her reputation by this apparent evidence of infidelity.
How did Zoosk get the data it needed to create this bogus profile of Mary? The CBC News reporter who chronicled Mary’s plight found a “technology expert (who) points to what is known as an ‘open authentication protocol’ — or OAuth — where people often unwittingly share personal information with third-party websites.”
OAuth (Open Authentication protocol) is what enables you to “sign in with Facebook” or Google or Twitter login credentials on other sites, eliminating the bother of creating and keeping track of new login credentials for multiple sites. Depending on how OAuth is configured, a site may request access to your personal data and the ability to act as if it was you on Facebook, Google, or whatever service you use to save yourself some time and hassle.
