Open Authorization (OAuth)

An open standard protocol used for granting third-party access to a user's resources or data without sharing their credentials (such as usernames and passwords) with the third-party service.

OAuth allows users to authorize access to their resources to other applications or services, such as social media platforms, without sharing their login credentials. This is achieved through the use of access tokens that are issued by an authorization server after a user grants permission to a client application. These access tokens can be used to access protected resources on behalf of the user.

It has become the de facto standard for enabling authorization and access control in modern web applications and APIs. It is widely used by popular services such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many others.