Re: Logging out from Facebook

On 2011/09/27 3:53, John Kemp wrote:

> How does the site know who the *user* is, if the user is not logged-in?

Here's another example that I just became aware of, and that most of you 
should be familiar with: Amazon.

I haven't analyzed any details, but if I simply go to Amazon, it's 
saying: "Hello, Martin Duerst ...".

At that point, I haven't actually logged in at all, but I can edit my 
wish list, and can make it public or private, for example. The link that 
says "Not Martin?" has an URI that starts with 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/flex/sign-out.html,
so from an Amazon-internal perspective, it seems they are assuming I'm 
logged in, but I never actually did log in there (I of course log in 
using https: when I actually buy something, and there Amazon is quite 
thorough in logging me out from their side after something like 5 
minutes or so).

That lets me suspect that there may be different needs/degrees for being 
"identified" or "logged in", not just a simple black/white distinction. 
Also, there may be a need for "automatic login" (i.e. without any dialog)


> Yes, I understand that the preferred locale of an unidentified user is important information in presenting a webpage that works for the user. But if the user is not logged-in, the site should only assume that a user who desires locale X is visiting their site.

I agree. If the site is only using the Accept-Language header sent from 
the browser, or only uses a cookie for that purpose and nothing more, 
that should be fine.


Regards,    Martin.

Received on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 05:39:37 UTC