I used to be a big proponent of Open Authorization. And I still really love OPEN ID. But not many people use anything but Facebook and Twitter Authorization. Do you know what I'm talking about? The "Allow Access" verses "No Thanks" dialogue boxes. Like this one from Pinterest:

Login with Facebook, Login with Twitter. Do these kind of dialogues or account setup screens give you pause, or do you think they are efficient and easy?

I was surprised by a comment inside a USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN FORUM on LinkedIN about this exact screen on Pinterest.

" But I just don't want anything connected to Facebook (even if just for a minute. :)"

So does the Login with Facebook stop you in your tracks? Now, I seem to recall a certain site, that I kept going to and was asked to login and when shown all the things the app wanted to access on my Facebook account, I politely closed the browser window. So these "authorizations" can get out of hand. They can ask to Post on your wall, they want to message you, they want to message your friends. Perhaps it has gotten out of hand.

The dialogues show up everywhere.

So, if I didn't already have a bit.ly account I would probably use one of these signin options. (I do tend to use Twitter rather than Facebook. For me, Twitter knows much less about me and my friends. That's what I use on Klout, for example.)

Even on sub-signin screens you can skip the user name and password ritual by clicking on one of the logos:

So how much are you giving away when you allow an App/Site like Pinterest to have ACCESS to your Facebook account? Is the trend out of control?

The benefit of Open Authorization or Claim ID was that the validation of your identity was not connected to any other social sharing account. I've got things in my facebook stream that I would not like everyone to see. So now we've got Twitter Auth and Facebook Auth. Google and Google+ have them too, but I am not seeing them very often. I would trust my login to Google long before Facebook or Twitter.

What about you? What's your "authorization" and "login using…" limit?

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)
permalink: http://uber.la/2012/01/authorization/

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