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?"
Re:Well that's one less site I will comment on (Score:5, Interesting)
Ditto. One benefit of having a name almost as common as "John Smith" is that the signal-to-noise ratio is far too high for anyone to really know what is actually a legitimate hit or one of the other thousands of "John Smiths" in the world. Plus, I happen to share my name with several very famous people, ranging from musicians to professional athletes to actors, so you're going to have to do some serious digging to find a hit that's not related to one of them. Certainly nothing within the first dozen pages on Google (and that's just when I gave up)...
Funny, when I was a kid I always used to think my name was boring and wanted to change it to something more unique and memorable. Sure am glad I didn't now...
Re:Okay... (Score:4, Interesting)
On the flip side, the more sites that reference facebook for their own services and advertising, the more estsablished Facebook gets and the more users that get cemetened in or stuck using it. I find it odd that more and more companies are now advertising "See us at www.facebook.com\ourcompany" instead of their own companies web site.