4 ms·

> When you enter your username and password in order to view your Facebook feed — that’s called a “user agent” and that’s something appreciably different than a

> When you enter your username and password in order to view your Facebook feed — that’s called a “user agent” and that’s something appreciably different than a third party quiz app sucking in friend feed data. I think we're trying to make this different in hindsight, but APIs for this sort of thing are the replacement for "please give my app your Facebook password". I hope everyone remembers how Facebook used to ask users for their GMail password and how Mint (still) asks users for their banking passwords. And if what you are doing is "giving an app access to my account", then letting them see everything you see is a pretty natural API. I think over time we have realised that users want more fine-grained permissions so they don't have to make such difficult decisions of whether they "trust" an app, but I know that as a developer and user I get pretty annoyed when other software cannot interact with an app for me because the API is too limiting.

dmix 8y ago
Exactly, this seems to be coming from people who don't fully understand or appreciate the history or social/technical/economic environment from which it came about. Then they are retroactively applying our relatively recently evolved demands for fine grained control of data. This type of thing in journalism really concerns me with the recent moral panic against 'fake news' and the attempts to create systems which define it. When what is 'true' or factual or not is so often subtle and easily spun/twisted. Which is ironic in this context because Facebook and NYTimes are both leading players championing these efforts.
basseq 8y ago
> Mint (still) asks users for their banking passwords. In defense of Mint, most banks are severely behind the curve when it comes to authentication, and there would be no way to provide that service otherwise. Where the financial institution has a better API, Mint happily supports it. (Interactive Brokers, IIRC, is an example of this.)

dmix 8y ago

Exactly, this seems to be coming from people who don't fully understand or appreciate the history or social/technical/economic environment from which it came about. Then they are retroactively applying our relatively recently evolved demands for fine grained control of data. This type of thing in journalism really concerns me with the recent moral panic against 'fake news' and the attempts to create systems which define it. When what is 'true' or factual or not is so often subtle and easily spun/twisted. Which is ironic in this context because Facebook and NYTimes are both leading players championing these efforts.

basseq 8y ago

> Mint (still) asks users for their banking passwords. In defense of Mint, most banks are severely behind the curve when it comes to authentication, and there would be no way to provide that service otherwise. Where the financial institution has a better API, Mint happily supports it. (Interactive Brokers, IIRC, is an example of this.)