Recently Facebook has announced Facebook Connect, which will allow the company’s almost 70 million users to port their identity and friends list securely to other Web sites. This can be seen as an answer to the MySpace unveiled Data Availability, which allows users to move data to eBay, Yahoo, Twitter and Photobucket, and a couple days before Google will announce its own data portability move. This has been already done just a day before the Facebook announcement. Facebook helps the user to maintain their real identity.
Facebook users represent themselves with their real names and real identities. With Facebook Connect, users can bring their real identity information with them wherever they go on the Web, including: basic profile information, profile picture, name, friends, photos, events, groups, and more. With Facebook Connect, users can also take their friends with them wherever they go on the Web. Developers will be able to add rich social context to their websites. The innovative Developers also will be able to show which of their Facebook friends already have accounts on their sites. This also maintains the dynamic privacy.
As a user moves around the open Web, their privacy settings will follow, ensuring that user’ information and privacy rules are always updated. As if a user changes their profile picture, or removes a friend connection, this will be automatically updated in the external website. Users will have total control of the permissions granted, like whether sites that agree to host Facebook data get to see basic profile information, including users’ pictures, names, friends and photos. Users who make an update to their profile information will see those changes in a partner Web site.
Users will be able to connect their Facebook account with any partner website using a trusted authentication method. Whether at login, or anywhere else a developer would like to add social context, the user will be able to authenticate and connect their account in a trusted environment. The user will have total control of the permissions granted.