Jaws dropped when I saw this.
This website requires both:
- a Google or Apple account
- a social media account
Just to take a free test. (On the site, scroll way down, click Apply)
The vast majority of people in my country may have a Google account (because of Android), but many don’t have a social media account. I’m one of them - I do not even have Google at all because I’ve been deGoogling for years.
I have an email address and GitHub for code writing, but no social media. SNS just isn’t for me - I’m definitely not wasting my time on doomscrolling.
Seeing a site that requires Google is heartbreaking, and I’m sure other minorities who care about their privacy will simply give up on participating.
Authentication of users seems to be outsourced to ‘identity providers (IdPs)’ (primarily: Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.: “login with…”); that manage access to a service’s resources, which are increasingly distributed throughout various cloud-based services. A service’s chat application might be hosted at provider X, whereas its website at provider Y; so managing access to these resources from a centralized identity pool is convenient. Well, unless you value you privacy, but that’s the end-user’s problem…
At least that is the impression I’ve gotten from my limited research on Amazon Cognito: required for contacting my doctor’s office through their forced chat application (automatic account creation, no longer a phone line for uses outside of emergencies). And yes, to anyone wondering: I am going to look for alternatives, because this should not be acceptable, at least for a doctor’s office of all places.