Spotify ^[1] has solved the question of user identity with a novel idea: Since many users are social network users, why not require a Facebook ^[2] id to sign into Spotify? Well, because users won’t like the integration of those two, it seems. Spotify began requiring any new users to log in with a Facebook user name last week. This came on the same day that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, appeared on stage with Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Ek, at the FB conference. Users light message boards up with complaints about the change since then, upset about the startling synergy. Spotify attempted to downplay the situation.  A user should “think of it as like a virtual ‘passport,’ designed to make the experience smoother and easier, with one less username and password to remember. You don’t need to connect to Facebook and if you do decide to, you can always control what you share and don’t share by changing your Spotify settings at any time,” according to a Spotify media release.

Ek seemed to go on the defensive. “We’ll try lots of things, and probably screw up from time to time,” he said, “but we value feedback and will make changes based on it.”

The Spotify-Facebook log in works like any game or app on Facebook. You log into your Facebook profile and then load Farmville or whatever app you’d like.

Could Facebook soon become the way to verify identification online? Perhaps. Certainly, employers check out potential hires on any social network, and companies check prospective clients on LinkedIn ^[3]. And the U.S. government is indeed searching ^[4] for an electronic driver’s license as a way to verify identification.

Read more at The New York Times ^[5].