Yahoo! Single Sign On APIs Release
Yahoo! has just released a new set of APIs for enabling SSO on the web. TechCrunch has a good review.
There are two pieces to BBAuth. The first is a single sign on tool to authenticate the user. The second piece is a set of APIs to get into specific Yahoo services and interact with user data. For example, the Yahoo Photos API allows other applications to, among other things, upload photos, tag photos, and modify titles and descriptions. Yahoo is also opening up Yahoo Mail through BBAuth.
I am not sure what data the 3rd party apps will be able to access from Yahoo!? E.g. will the 3rd party apps be able to access information related to Yahoo! Shopping? Will they be able to access user address information? What kind of systems will be put in place to validate the 3rd party application providers to ensure that the user information is not misused?
This move makes a lot of sense for Yahoo! as they get to be the central repository of all user information and to participate in a whole lot of transactions unrelated to their properties. I am not sure, though, that it makes sense for 3rd party apps or users. Typically users and 3rd party application providers are reluctant to have an intermediary, that does not add any direct value, in the middle of a transaction. There have been a few initiatives like this in the past – Microsoft Passport and Six part’s TypeKey to name a few. Such SSO initiative did not do very well in the past…let’s see how Yahoo!’s move fares?
HI Jitendra,
“I am not sure what data the 3rd party apps will be access from Yahoo!?”
The first API that launched with BBAuth support is Photos and Mail is is allowing a couple of developers to test their beta! If you develop an application you need to pick the APIs that you want to use and the developer has to give permission for it.
-dan
Dan Theurer
September 30, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Dan,
Is the idea here to enable 3rd party apps to write their own email clients or photo viewing UIs? Are they gonna have to pay something to Yahoo!?
Thanks,
Jitendra
Check out Dan’s article on his blog at http://www.theurer.cc/blog/2006/09/29/launching-the-un-launch-able/
Jitendra
September 30, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I have an uneasy feeling the SSO initiatives by Yahoo!, MS and Google are primarily driven from tracking user behaviour for target advertising. With the kind of SSO they will have tons of data to do very precise targetting that advertisers will love to get access to. That means big bucks for these guys.
Love your new blog. The posts are to the point, current and relvant.
Good luck.
-Subhash
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