NewsCloud writes "Last week, Facebook quietly removed sign-in restrictions that previously hid third party applications from the public Web. In other words, Facebook now allows its third party applications to be viewable on the Web by anonymous visitors and indexable by search engines. Web developers can now build an application using Facebook's platform usable by anyone on the Internet — not just Facebook members (e.g. the Lending Library). In doing so, developers can leverage Facebook's login and registration as well its other platform services, which are becoming increasingly substantial. Facebook may be trying to gain advantage as a universal authentication gateway for public Web applications. If successful, it could further hamper efforts to establish OpenID. This will also help the company break out of its earlier AOL-like walled-garden strategy."

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