Facebook Logins Gettting Disfavored?

Maybe it's just me, and, Lord knows, the recency (or frequency) illusion is a strong cognitive bias, but I seem to be hearing from more and more people that they won't use a site or app that offers only Facebook (and/or some other established social network, e.g., LinkedIn, Twitter) as a way to log in (as a single example, I have a vague recollection that, in the last couple of weeks, Doc Searls tweeted that he won't use any social network login on a third-party site).

If true, this is an interesting hypothesis about a growing concern about the amount of data that Facebook is aggregating.  Re this worry about aggregation of personal data, the looming battle between the FTC & Google is another manifestation of this growing concern. 

On balance, it's a good thing to be concerned.  Too much data in the hands of a single organization -- whether a government agency, corporation or non-profit entity -- is dangerous.  It's very easy for the collectors of the data to persuade themselves that their every use of the data is, somehow, "good" -- even hidden or abusive uses. Data, combined with powerful analytics, is power; unregulated or uncontrolled power often corrupts (See famous quote by Lord Acton).

I doubt Facebook would release the relevant data to test this hypothesis (and it would, in any case, be a tricky analysis to tease out any downward trends here, given the overall rate at which Facebook is growing), but it would be interesting to see whether this is a strong trend, weak trend or somewhere in between.

Comments with any helpful data or analysis welcome!

Comments

[Semil Shah]

It's not just you. It's so bad, it seems like the old days of AOL signin and popups.

[Julespieri]

OK, just lost my long (thoughtful--IMHO) comment because I wrote it before logging in via Twitter. I guess that will have to stand as my real-time reaction to your post. I just don't have time to recreate the comment!

[WavespotWiFi]

I would say - it depends.

If you are getting a good value exchange in return for logging in with a FB id (Your get simplicity of commenting, entering into a contest etc.) then it seems to make perfect sense. In case of Wavespot, we let a local merchant provide free WIFI when a visitor connects with their Facebook ID. Everyone benefits - Visitor gets a free resource and merchant gets to know more about their patrons, customize offers based on this.