Mozilla: Unlike FB and Twitter Single Sign-in, Persona Protects User Privacy

tsamsoniw writes "Mozilla today unveiled Persona Beta 2, the newest edition of the organization's open authentication system. The release includes Identity Bridging, which lets user sign in to Persona-supported sites using their existing webmail accounts, starting with Yahoo. Mozilla used the release as an opportunity to bash social sign-in offerings from Facebook and Twitter, which 'conflate the act of signing into a website with sharing access to your social network, and often granting the site permission to publish on your behalf,' said Lloyd Hilaiel, technical lead for Mozilla Persona. He added that they are built in such a way that social providers have full visibility into a user's browsing behavior."

Re:Menu - New incognito window (Ctrl+Shift+N)

[The MAZZTer]

I think you missed the point. Persona is to allow a website to add a sign in feature for users who WANT to sign in.. for example, to save their preferences for the site or have an identity... without the hassle of having users create an account just for your site. The idea definitely isn't new, this is just Mozilla's own take on it.

Re:Not google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's sign-in is OpenID based and is explicit about what access you are granting to the website (usually just that they get to know your Google ID which is also your e-mail address). I guess if you have an associated G+ account then the website would be able to look at your public G+ posts/friends, but It's not comparable to Facebook letting apps post items to your newsfeed or even looking at your information marked as private (for Facebook applications).

Re:Stop making it easier to require sign-ins

[Quasimodem]

DuckDuckGo (https://duckduckgo.com/)

Re:This just in...

[styrotech]

When linux is a web-based service, call me and we'll talk. Until then, stop taking things out of context... it makes you look retarded.

When you understand what Persona is, call me and we'll talk. Until then, stop taking things out of context... it makes you look retarded.

Hint: Personal is a decentralised system/protocol implemented using open source code. Anybody can set up an identity provider, and Mozilla will have no connection to it. In terms of the rest us being users vs being products it is far closer to Linux than your "web based services" (eg Facebook or Twitter).