I recently installed an app on my iPhone that integrated with my Google Voice account. It allowed me to place calls from my Google Voice number instead of my standard cell phone number, very convenient! In order to access my Google Voice account however, the application needed my Google password.

The moment I entered it, I regretted my decision. My Google account isn’t just some random service I use on the internet. It’s the key to a vast amount of personal and sensitive information about me - Gmail has all my contacts and communication history both personal and professional; Google Docs has my financial information; Google Checkout has direct access to my credit cards for making online purchases, Google Notebook has information on many of my current projects that would take months to catch up on if I lost access, iGoogle has my to-do and wish lists, Calendar remembers birthdays, holidays and appointments for me, my video game studio’s domain is linked to my Google account, as is the new domain I created for my day job, and of course Google Voice itself manages the phone number I’ve given to everyone I’m actually interested in hearing from.

Giving up this password put me at risk not only of losing access to all of this information, but having someone use it against me. This is a risk I should never have taken. So within a couple of hours, I made up my mind to change my password.

This is just a friendly warning - be aware of the access you’re giving out when you sign up for cross-site services. Whenever an organization or application asks you for your account information for another service, you’re opening up that account and everything that’s linked to it to the owners of the other site (and any black hats that might get into their systems). It’s easy to forget how the convenience and accessibility of today’s online world makes us vulnerable.

I’m a pretty tech savvy guy, and I’m generally good at protecting my devices from external malice. But I’m stil susceptible to innocuous-looking “convenience” applications to link my various online identities together. It’s bad enough that most people use the same usernames and passwords for different sites. Consider your choices carefully.

Related resources:

Coding Horror - Please Give Us Your Email Password