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Comment by AbeEstrada | Hacker News Reader

I can't create an account because it uses Facebook, I'll wait for the next version.

This is a product for tracking everything you do, and tries to accomplish that by pulling data from other services that track everything you do.

Is Facebook uniquely untrustworthy in this category? Is there anything about Gyroscope that makes it uniquely trustworthy, if only they gathered your data directly?

It isn't about being untrustworthy: I don't use Facebook, I use many other things but not Facebook. If he has the code to handle Facebook logins, he has the code to handle Google logins as well.

I don't have a Facebook account.

This really is a stupid assumption. Yes there are people who actually don't want Facebook for reasons other than privacy.

Let's not just assume the parent of your comment thinks Facebook is untrustworthy; how about if someone (like me, for example) just doesn't have a Facebook account?

I would have signed up via facebook, but then I noticed they wanted my friends list. Nope. Nope. Nope.

IIRC the friends list is in the default app permissions, and calling the graph API only returns the friends on your list who also gave the same permission to the app.

I would like to use it but not reveal who I am. I think this is more than fair enough reason, and probably the direction these guys should move towards.

I don't like Facebook but I have an account because my mom and wife do too. So I choose not to connect my account with anything. Am I an unacceptable weirdo?

https://stallman.org/facebook.html

The irony is that without Stallman (GNU software), there probably wouldn't be facebook :)

If you don't use Facebook for those reasons, you probably won't want to use a site like this either, though. I know I don't.

Even if I am in a tiny minority, I don't have a Facebook account and I would prefer to continue not having one (motive: snobbism, more than privacy concerns). So if a service is only available through a FB login I decline to use the service.

The main issue I have with Facebook is that their goal is diametrically opposed to the concept of the Internet that I would subscribe to. They are actively working toward attaining a monopoly for online social activity. In a sense, they want to become the "social wrapper" for everything that is done on the Internet.

I completely deleted my Facebook account a few weeks ago and quickly am realizing how far-reaching their monopoly already is.

This point alone - which doesn't even include the many, many privacy issues FB has - is enough for me to say I will not use a service that requires a FB login.

Common plight these days. I've considered making throwaway facebook profiles for these sorts of things before, but there's got to be a better solution.

Facebook's "Anonymous" Login[0] is still in beta.

0.https://developers.facebook.com/products/anonymous-login/

Why wouldn't you make a throwaway Facebook profile? My Facebook account was initially created as my legitimate account, but now I treat it as essentially a throwaway. It makes logging in to most random little sites extremely handy, and I see no measurable downside.

If you want to remain any kind of anonymous, it means logging into each facebook login-enabled site with a new, fresh fb account. Using one trash account might stop them from linking things to your 'real identity' (such as fb perceives it), but it still lets them link all of your activities together and build a profile. Persona linking from there isn't hard, based on usernames or email addresses used (see pipl and similar for examples of casual, publicly available version of these tools). But even if there's no persona/pseudonym linking algo going on, you're still being 'tracked'. It's not fully anonymous.

Unless you clear your Facebook cookies each time you log out.

There are also in-browser tools that prevent cookies from being sent to third parties.

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