Facebook's 'Anonymous Login' is Evil Genius

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"People First": Mark Zuckerberg talks privacy at f8.

Image: Karissa Bell, Mashable

By Chris Taylor2014-05-01 04:02:38 UTC

This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.

Say what you like about Mark Zuckerberg, the guy is nothing if not self-aware. He knows that one of the biggest problems Facebook faces, now and in the future, is the widespread perception that it's vacuuming up all sorts of personal information about you.

At the same time, he knows that Facebook's revenue stream depends almost entirely on targeted advertising, which in turn depends on — well, vacuuming up all sorts of personal information about you. What we have here is an image problem.

Time was when Zuckerberg simply told us to grow up, that there was no longer a "social norm" around privacy amongst his users. Given the amount of personal information most of us willingly enter into the social network, this was a pretty fair summary (1.3 billion users and counting can't be wrong, right?)

But something can be accurate and still sound creepy. We're comfortable giving this information to our friends, who happen to be on Facebook; we're not comfortable with the fact that Facebook happens to be peeking over our shoulders the whole time. So as Zuckerberg inches towards 30, he has slowly been introducing the trappings of a kinder, gentler social network.

See also: Goodbye, Hoodie: Facebook Grows Up

Earlier this year we started to see the privacy dinosaur, a cheery blue Barney-like fellow who pops up on Facebook to remind us that we have the option of setting our posts to "public" or just letting our friends see them. On Wednesday at f8, the company went beyond dinosaurs in the evolution of its approach to privacy by introducing "anonymous login."

It is best to put quotes around "anonymous login," for "anonymous login" is not truly anonymous. It's simply a complement to the "login with Facebook" button you see at signup on all manner of third-party apps and services. The app or service won't receive any information about you — but Facebook still verifies it's you, and gets the skinny on what it is you're doing, what app you're logging into this time, and how often you've logged into that app, which it gets to combine with all the other data it has on you. It's as anonymous as a two-way mirror.

See also: Mark Zuckerberg Casually Conquers the World

This is a brilliant business move in many ways, and I wouldn't have been surprised to hear Zuckerberg do his best evil-genius laugh on stage at f8. First of all, it's great optics — it shows Facebook cares about your privacy. (Which they do and should, because it's good for business to keep your customers very happy, especially if your customers happen to be a mob of people 1.3 billion strong.)

Secondly, it removes one of the most annoying manifestations of the privacy problem — the moment where you have to be on your guard lest you accidentally click the button that lets a third-party app post to Facebook for you. (Hands up anyone who's ever accidentally hit "okay" instead of "skip" on that second window? Been there.)

Thirdly, "anonymous login" turns the tide of information back towards Facebook. Lots of app makers thrive on gleaning your personal information from the social network. Even something as small as your birthday (they usually get your birthday and your friends list) helps them understand the demographics of their audience, and it helps them sell ads via other networks.

Now Facebook has turned off the spigot of that information, making it even more valuable to developers.

See also: What Facebook's New Login Means for Developers

The more popular "anonymous login" is, the more Facebook controls access to that information. It's probably no coincidence that this was the same f8 keynote in which Facebook introduced its new advertising platform, Facebook Audience Network. Let us do the heavy lifting, said a heavily practiced Debbie Liu, Facebook's Director of Platform Monetization. Let us figure the best people to target your ad to. Look, it worked for Target!

Facebook's platform needs to be monetized, and the company has decided that developers can afford to cough up some more cash to promote their product on the world's largest social network. That's why the f8 keynote felt like this really geeky version of an Amway presentation — because that's what it was.

It was a pleasant enough sales pitch, with the occasional upgrade for the average users, but we clearly were not the target audience. This was a sales pitch. I spent a good deal of the time watching it with the words "pyramid scheme" floating through my head. Developers are the mass at the bottom of the pyramid, and if they want access to the gold at the top — access to pretty much everyone who might ever buy their product — then Facebook is going to make them pay for it. It's just good business sense.

And if it can make them pay for it while simultaneously pleasing their users, calming their nerves on privacy while continuing to collect the same amount of information on them, so much the better.

Topics: anonymity, Facebook, Social Media