Facebook Dominates Our Identity

Facebook has come to dominate social logins, effectively controlling our on-line identities.

When one talks about the internet, what may come to mind is the billions of users and seemingly endless sites. In reality, it is only a few select companies that dominate the ever growing number of internet users. In particular Facebook and Google. But when it comes to social logins, it's the one company that you would NOT want to control who you are.

Facebook knows more about you than any public company on Earth - your likes and dislikes, your political inclinations, your very personality. And they are using that valuable information to sell your personality to firms such as Cambridge Analytica to influence what you buy and even how to think in a certain way.

Facebook is the most popular login mechanism for other websites. Their dominance of social logins has only grown, squeezing out the likes of Yahoo and Twitter out of the market over the years. Google may own search but Facebook owns our online identity through signed logins.

Part of the reason is people are doing everyday tasks online more than ever, and they need to login to many different websites to do them. Before when you ordered food you probably did it over the phone. Now most orders are done online, which needs a login account. Instead of creating an account for each and every service you use as well as memorizing the dozens of different passwords, it is much easier to log in with your Facebook or Google account.

Together with Google, these two behemoths command a whopping 94% of the market. Facebook and Google have realised the incredible value of our online identity along with all the data that they provide about us. Google's attempt to own the social media space was Google+. They shut it down recently, only after news reported that their data has hacked long before. This only increases Facebook's social dominance. Together they effectively control what we see and thus have massive influence on us.