OAuth

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Unofficial logo designed by Chris Messina
Latest version	2.0
Organization	Internet Engineering Task Force
Website	Hardt, Dick (October 2012). "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework".

OAuth (short for open authorization^[1][2]) is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but without giving them the passwords.^[3][4] This mechanism is used by companies such as Amazon,^[5] Google, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Twitter to permit users to share information about their accounts with third-party applications or websites.

Generally, the OAuth protocol provides a way for resource owners to provide a client [application] with secure delegated access to server resources. It specifies a process for resource owners to authorize third-party access to their server resources without providing credentials. Designed specifically to work with Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), OAuth essentially allows access tokens to be issued to third-party clients by an authorization server, with the approval of the resource owner. The third party then uses the access token to access the protected resources hosted by the resource server.^[2]