(Newswire.net — January 27, 2016) — Social sign-in has been beneficial for many websites. It makes people more likely to sign-up and sign-in when they don’t have to enter any of their information but can just import that information from a preexisting account. Convenience is a selling point no matter how simple the task, but it’s time to ask an important question: is social sign-in worth the accompanying risks?
Many people don’t realize there are any risks associated with social sign-in, other than maybe annoying their friends feed with posts they don’t want to see. However, social sign-in may be giving both your social networking site of choice and external sites access to more information than you’d like. Here’s what you need to know about using social sign-ins.
The Problem Of Password Fatigue
Social sign-in was developed to, among other things, solve the problem of password fatigue. The idea was that rather than accumulating an endless series of sign-ins and passwords for accounts across the internet, users could have one account that allows them to use many websites.
While most of us use similar sign-in credentials, the problem becomes the varying requirements for different websites. Users then end up guessing at the password requirements for ten minutes or getting frustrated and leaving the site. This is password fatigue – there are just too many to keep straight. But is social sign-in the right solution for this problem?
Sign-In To Engage
Social media is a vital tool for just about any website, whether they’re using social sign-in or not. It allows brands to engage with users, tell a back story, build search relevance, and generally appear relevant in today’s social media driven world. But does business use of social media mean that social sign-in is also beneficial?
It’s possible that social sign-in might help a website that wants their users to respond to their embedded Twitter feed more often, but so long as they redirect their users easily to Twitter itself, everyone can skip the social sign-in step.
That isn’t what sites that use social sign-in want, however. They want you to authorize your information use so that they can access your friends. This is why you should never authorize a website to post to your Facebook on your behalf through social sign-in – it gives them leeway to post things to your feed you may not want or expect there. If you can’t figure out how to refuse this authorization, change your site permissions so that posts made on your behalf are only visible to you. This will cut down on that particular annoyance.
Know Your Networks
The risks of using social sign-in vary depending on what site you use. If your external contact is Twitter, the receiving site will have access to less of your personal information than if you sign in through Facebook. On the other hand, if you don’t post much personal information to your Facebook, and the site requesting your contact is one you trust and use frequently, you might be willing to risk it. Ultimately, it’s about deciding what your data is worth.
When websites use social sign-in, they are giving up responsibility for protecting your information, leaving that up to the source site. If you’re worried about the security structures of a site, however, that might not be enough reassurance. It’s time to engage this process with real internet savvy rather than using social sign-in in with abandon.