Facebook Updates Its Login System With New Privacy Controls, Anonymous Sign-In

If you’re like me, you spend plenty of time muttering, “No I do not want to log in using my Facebook profile!” while accessing other sites. Because why does the fundraising site du jour need to know I like a bluegrass band called No Vests On Our Chests? It doesn’t, so Facebook has now updated the privacy controls on those connected logins.

Facebook announced that change and others in a post today from its f8 developers conference.

Basically, it’s not easy to tell what information you’re sharing with which apps you interact with and include Facebook, so these changes will ostensibly clear all that up.

“Last year, people logged into apps and websites with Facebook Login over 10 billion times, giving them a fast and easy way to sign in to apps without having to remember separate usernames and passwords,” Facebook wrote in introducing “line by line control” for logins.

The login system update would allow users to connect with an app through their Facebook credentials, but pick and choose what information that app gets from such a link. So maybe you want to play Ninjas vs. Vampires or whatever and want it to know your name, but not your birthday. You can control that with the update, which is rolling out over the next few months.

Facebook also launched an Anonymous Login option, allowing users to try out games and apps on Facebook without using their own information. The idea being, once you’re okay with how it works, you can choose to use it with your real login. This is still in development, it seems.

The final change is a dashboard to control apps that seems to just be a redesign of the former one. It’s a place “where people can see a list of apps they use, manage specific permissions, or remove apps entirely.” That’s also rolling out in the next few weeks.

And if one more app asks me if I want to connect using my Facebook account, well, I’ll be mad. I already am because I know it’s going to happen.

f8: Introducing Anonymous Login and an Updated Facebook Login [Facebook]

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