Facebook stops asking new users for email passwords

Facebook has halted a sketchy practice of asking some new users for their outside email credentials in order to verify their accounts.

After a Twitter user on Sunday shared a screenshot of Facebook asking them for the password to their email, the social media giant faced intense criticism from security professionals.

Facebook has maintained that the password prompt only appeared for a small number of users, specifically new users who were signing up for Facebook on desktops with email addresses that did not support OAuth. OAuth, which is an open standard security protocol used by Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook, lets users grant third-party clients access to their information without giving them their password.

Facebook is facing more scrutiny over how it handles user passwords after numerous privacy transgressions over the past year.

While the social media giant is always quick to fix whatever initial problem occurs, the fact is that new problems always crop up.

Original article
Author: Engadget

Engadget is the original home for technology news and reviews. Since its founding in 2004, we've grown from an exhaustive source for consumer tech news to a global multimedia organization covering the intersection of technology, gaming and entertainment.

Engadget has recently written 10 articles on similar topics including :
  1. "The News Feed will now prioritize your closest friends and links most relevant to you". (May 17, 2019)
  2. "Did you know there's a page in Gmail that likely lists anything you've been sent a receipt for in the past few years?". (May 18, 2019)
  3. "Facebook's new vision is vague and flawed". (May 2, 2019)
  4. "A US judge ordered Facebook to share emails and documents related to the Cambridge Analytica leak". (June 1, 2019)
  5. "Facebook previously asked some new users for their email passwords". (May 20, 2019)
  6. "It's all part of Facebook's goal of interoperability". (April 30, 2019)
  7. "The change would place News Feed and Stories content side by side". (April 15, 2019)
  8. "Tobii's software now uses eye tracking to hide the contents of your screen, switch monitors and more". (April 26, 2019)
  9. "The country's data watchdog also wants location-tracking turned off for teens". (April 15, 2019)
  10. "According to 'The Wall Street Journal,' Facebook is developing a cryptocurrency payment system that will work across websites". (May 3, 2019)
Posted on  , , , , , , ,