With a lot of convenience, to access many applications and websites it is not necessary to create a new account, but just connect the personal account of Facebook, Google, Twitter or other important "hub" of the web. These "hubs" are those sites that have gained more popularity than others by concentrating most of the visits from users all over the world, the portals they provide for finding many different resources on the internet, depending on their specialization.
For example, Facebook is used by many Internet sites to access their services, while many Android apps and games take advantage of the Google account in order to connect registered users with each other without forcing them to create a new account and remember a new one. password.
Using the credentials of one or another account you can therefore access the various services without having to register.
The problem with this method is that every app or site that is accessed with a linked account requires permissions that are difficult to verify.
If it has never been done, it is therefore worth checking today, for each service and app used and connected, which authorizations are granted and, therefore, what our data can see from connected accounts such as those of Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
Third-party services and applications can access some data from a Google or Facebook account if they are authorized by the user manually.
The problem of security and privacy can derive both from patently harmful applications designed to steal data by deception, and from services that completely change their purpose and function, perhaps because they change hands, purchased from other companies.
Those who rightly take advantage of their online accounts to access external sites should occasionally worry about reviewing and checking the authorizations granted in the past and removing those that are no longer needed and that you no longer want to access.
The most important accounts to check are:
1) Google
On the Google account page, after logging in, you can see the list of applications, tools, programs and online services authorized to access the account.
We talked, in another article, about how to control the privacy of the Google account and all the services related to it.
The same page also lists programs and applications that use specific passwords if Google or Gmail login with two-step verification has been enabled.
Specific passwords work only with a given program (for example synchronization with Google Chrome) and can be canceled at any time and, if necessary, recreated.
2) Facebook
To check the applications connected to Facebook, go to the settings in the Apps section and remove all the applications that use the Facebook account, the ones you never use and don't remember.
As written in the past, it is very important to keep your Facebook account safe from external access and clean from invitations and notifications, disable and remove applications that are not needed.
In general, read the Facebook privacy guide to know how others see us .
3) Twitter
Even the Twitter account is a very used by external sites to log in without having to register.
To see all the authorizations given to applications and websites, you can enter this page of connections .
The list shows the name, developer, description, type of access and date of the authorized app.
For each of them you can withdraw access with a click.
4) Microsoft
To check the applications and online services connected to the Microsoft account, first access the Microsoft site with your account, then go to the Privacy section and, at the bottom, find the link of the connected apps.
Then remove all those no longer used.
5) Yahoo
If you use Yahoo applications on smarthpone Android or iPhone and if you have used a Yahoo Mail account to access some sites or to use programs like Yahoo Messenger, you can see all the permissions from this web page of connections outside Yahoo .
A new account login is required before checking permissions.
6) Flickr
Connected to Yahoo is the Flickr photo sharing service which is used by many external applications, even from mobile phones.
Then check the permissions of Flickr
7) Linkedin
On the settings page, go to the Account section, then to the App and then to Partners and third parties and then to Allowed services to find all the programs and websites that have been accessed using your Linkedin account.
8) Dropbox
The strength of Dropbox and its uniqueness is linked to the numerous applications to increase its functions.
These external applications can be viewed from the Dropbox account settings page, scroll down and find the connected external apps, which can be removed.
To be safe in the future, it is better to install, if you use Chrome, the Privacy Cleaner extension that controls all applications connected to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Yahoo accounts .
This extension identifies high-risk applications, those that ask for more permissions and more private data, sometimes even in an unjustified way (for example, a game that asks to see our Google address book is not good).
The functionality of using applications and websites with already registered accounts is a great thing, because it avoids tedious registration processes which then force you to have to remember passwords.
However, it is worthwhile, at least every now and then, to remember to check the authorized accesses to block applications and services that are not used or that no longer exist.
This greatly reduces the risk of information theft, account tampering and other malicious activities.
