I have been wondering what to write for my first entry on this new shiney blog. I considered importing some of my favourite old blog posts but thought that a little cheap; it is something I will do in time. Then my brain kicked in and I thought I would start with some concerns I have over Facebook Connect, the new service from Facebook. I was researching this service with the scope of Innovative Business for an academic paper. I won’t bore you with the lengthy piece but a few things still bug me about the service they are running.
- Firstly, we are heralding this as ‘new thinking’ and ‘innovative’, yet I can’t help but think this is a power grab. Widespread adoption of the Connect service makes Facebook the de-facto login standard on many websites, giving it a little too much power. Could this stop some users from joining non-connect affiliated websites?
- Connect may provide Facebook with the ability to track external user movement and thus better target ads. I’m all for well targeted ads but this raises many privacy concerns (and Facebook are not known for their strength in user privacy).
- I also worry because Facebook has a history of bullying smaller companies (see the case against Brazilian ‘Power’). Power allowed people to view snippets of Facebook feeds on the Power website. Facebook claim this caused irreparable damage and can steal user bases (yet ironically, Facebook gains many users via automatically inviting Gmail / MSN friends). Jumping to litigation was their first response with Power – can smaller companies adopting connect afford that?
- Facebook has also recently become prominent in OpenID by joining the board. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, they really are competing services. We can talk about cooperation all we want, if Facebook users adopt OpenID (with its current structure) Facebook loses money!
With all of these criticisms being aired, I am not totally against Connect. It is a great service and hell, I have even implemented it on this blog. However, with Facebooks reputation for poor privacy controls (remember Beacon?) I do worry about the long term direction..just a little!
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I definitely enjoyed logging on with the facebook connect. Something to think about on my upcoming website. Am gonna be following you for the new tricks on this blog. Keep it rolling.
Hi Rajeev, good to hear from you again. Thanks. I’ll admit the Connect script may be a little buggy – still got a little playing to do, but it was worth a try!
Thanks for the insight. I was debating whether or not to use Facebook Connect. I think I'll give it a try….
Thanks for dropping by. Facebook Connect has changed a lot since I first wrote this article. What is scary is that the concerns are still valid too!
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