Facebook Frolics, Connecting the Dots 0
You’ve seen Facebook Connect.
When a website invites you to login with your Facebook credentials, that’s Facebook Connect.
I always refuse that invitation, because, by so doing, I am not just logging into that website. I am also telling Facebook that I am logging in and permitting Facebook to track my actions while I’m there. I do the same if I login with Google, Twitter, or other credentials–I open myself to be tracked, then have my behavior sliced, diced, and sold to the highest bidder.
That is not safe HEX.
Indeed, if a site or service requires me to use my Facebook credentials, as Pandora does, I won’t use that site or service.
At MarketWatch, Jake Mann and Meena Krishnamsetty think that Facebook Connect is Facebook’s secret weapon to keep from becoming another penny stock:
If Facebook does choose to start charging for Connect, it would realize an additional $4.5 billion in annual revenues by the end of 2015. Considering the fact that current estimates from Wedbush Securities and eMarketer expect the company to finish 2012 with close to $5 billion in revenues, we can immediately see that any monetization of Facebook Connect would be material to the company’s bottom line.
And, regarding the slicing, dicing and selling, read this report at EFF.
Read it now.