Gawker Media To Require Commenters' Facebook, Twitter, Or Google Logins

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?"

Comments

Issue? What issue?

[neokushan]

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

[icebike]

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:goodbye common sense

[omnichad]

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.