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Facebook Removes Firewall from Applications

NewsCloud writes "Last week, Facebook quietly removed sign-in restrictions that previously hid third party applications from the public Web. In other words, Facebook now allows its third party applications to be viewable on the Web by anonymous visitors and indexable by search engines. Web developers can now build an application using Facebook's platform usable by anyone on the Internet — not just Facebook members (e.g. the Lending Library). In doing so, developers can leverage Facebook's login and registration as well its other platform services, which are becoming increasingly substantial. Facebook may be trying to gain advantage as a universal authentication gateway for public Web applications. If successful, it could further hamper efforts to establish OpenID. This will also help the company break out of its earlier AOL-like walled-garden strategy."

3 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. And... by owlnation · · Score: 5, Funny

    Facebook users organize a mass protest against this change in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

  2. how many of you... by mathfeel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    like me, started using facebook because it's a walled-garden with well segregated networks? I mean, I don't want to pervert457 or randomperson223 to be able to view my profile, or try to flood my inbox (or wall, I suppose). Maybe I am mis-informed, but that's how I perceive MySpace from a lot of media reports including here on /.. Now-a-day, facebook seems to become exceeding bloated with random apps. I just want to check what's up with my friend and his profile takes eons to load (partly his fault of course). I also start to notice that my "notification" are filled with (non-deleteable) items for ads (just saw a Blockbuster one).

    Oh yeah, and this is hilarious...youtube video

    --
    The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
  3. Re:plaintext? by pat+mcguire · · Score: 5, Informative

    instead of http://facebook/ use https://facebook./ They don't advertise it, but there it is. It doesn't protect anything but your password, however. After sign in you're off of SSL.