Facebook said Thursday it's altering the permissions granted to developers when people click the Facebook Login button to sign up for their mobile applications. The changes, made in response to complaints from users, are meant to give people more control over what these apps can post to their Facebook accounts.
Facebook Login is the plugin third-party app makers use to let people log in to apps with their Facebook accounts. According to Facebook, the option is integrated with 81 of the top 100 growing iOS apps and 62 of the top 100 grossing Android apps, and people use Facebook Login with new apps more than 850 million times per month.
The social network has updated the Facebook Login functionality so that mobile applications must now separately ask for permission to post back to a person's Facebook account. The change is meant to give members a more explicit way to allow or deny apps the ability to post to the social network on their behalf. The to-share-or-not-to-share prompt is also intended to be easier to understand, so members are clearer on which audiences will see app activities posted to their Timeline or account.
"Although Facebook Login is widely used, we understand people's concerns about apps posting on their Timeline or to their friends," the company said in a press release. "Clearly separating sharing means people can decide whether they only want to use Facebook Login for fast registration without also sharing back to Facebook. If you want to share later, you still can."
The change should come as welcome addition for people who previously unknowingly granted mobile applications the permission to share their actions back to Facebook. It does, however, slow down the process a bit, though the additional step is partially counteracted by improvements in load time. The social network said that it's made Facebook Login load as much as 31 percent faster on mobile.