Gawker Media To Require Commenters' Facebook, Twitter, Or Google Logins 231
First time accepted submitter wynterwynd writes "In a move that seems to be in line with Gawker Media founder Nick Denton's opinion of his sites' commenters, some Gawker Media sites are now instructing their commenters that they will have to link their Gawker commenter ID with their Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts in order to log in. Is this really a good idea, considering the security issues Gawker has had in the past? Per the article, for 'security purposes' Gawker is 'putting our account security layer in the hands of some of the best in the business — major sites with more security expertise and resources than anyone else on the web.' To my mind, it's hard to see this as anything but a grab to milk Gawker commenters' social networking accounts for targeted ad revenue — which really shouldn't be a surpirse considering Denton's contempt for most of the Gawker community. Is this a step too far for an online community? Is it a cash grab or a genuine effort to encourage secure and responsible posting?"
Issue? What issue? (Score:5, Informative)
The summary, as you might expect, is a little off.
What's happening here is that Gawker is switching from its own account system to using the accounts of existing social services (Google, Facebook or twitter). This is not them asking for your account but rather asking you to AUTHORISE gawker's access to your account details. If this is an issue, please go talk to Disqus or even Twitter/Facebook/Google themselves, who also let you "link" accounts from other services, as well as a bunch of other sites. This is the way the web is going and is nothing new.
Re:goodbye common sense (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing like gawker having been hacked before to highlight how bad this is, as appropriately noted.
How is this "bad"?
Do you understand what is being discussed here? Gawker is not asking for your password for Google/Twitter/Facebook.
Rather, the ask Google (for example) to authenticate you, and Google answers YES, or NO, and never lets Gawker see your password.
Re:Don't have any of those accounts (Score:4, Informative)
Then you can't be monetized, and therefore are not of interest to Gawker. From his perspective, you take but contribute nothing in return. Cynical, but Gawker's a business not a charity. They're also criminals, but that's another matter.
Denton's right about comment sections being basically useless, though. Just look around you. Look at Slashdot's comments. Just a bunch of adolescent OS bigots who don't know shit.
Yes, I am aware of the irony.
Re:Any site doing this needs their head examined.. (Score:2, Informative)
There are many good reasons. If I were building a new web site from the ground up, I'd probably only allow Google/FB authentication. If I had an existing web site with local authentication, I might switch and I'd definitely prefer Google/FB auth.
You have to analyze the decision from a business/marketing perspective. Site specific logins are a barrier to using any web site. If it is just one click to login with Google/FB you will get a lot more users, it's as simple as that. And returning users have a big barrier to remember username and secure password, particularly if you put onerous restrictions on password strength.
Then there are other softer costs. Managing passwords is troublesome, sometimes requires customer service to intervene or lose users. If you get hacked, you'll have a PR nightmare. Security is hard, better to let someone else with a dedicated staff do it.
And that doesn't even go into the benefits of using social network authentication, like being able to better quality information about those users and get them to draw other users from their network in.
Re:goodbye common sense (Score:5, Informative)
Technically, Facebook's authentication at a minimum gives a lot of personal info to the service. Even the most basic level of Facebook Connect gives them access to a list of your friends, profile information, and so on. So it's a little more than blind authentication.
Re:Okay... (Score:4, Informative)
It is an option. Not a requirement.
For the next few weeks, according to their FAQ. Then it becomes a requirement.
Re:Okay... (Score:4, Informative)
You don't have to give up anonymity, at least not according to the io9 people (the sci-fi site under the Gawker umbrella). They are encouraging everyone to just create a throw-away twitter account that is only used at io9. Whether this is acceptable to twitter may be another story...