bowdenweb

Facebook’s engineers actually believe this idea will protect anyone’s identity, then their understanding of their own product is shockingly, unimaginably poor.

Unlike web data formats, where HTML is an important one, but not the only one, and web protocols, where HTTP has a similar status, there is only one Web naming/addressing technology: URIs.

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs, aka URLs) are short strings that identify resources in the web: documents, images, downloadable files, services, electronic mailboxes, and other resources. They make resources available under a variety of naming schemes and access methods such as HTTP, FTP, and Internet mail addressable in the same simple way. They reduce the tedium of "log in to this server, then issue this magic command …" down to a single click.

It is an extensible technology: there are a number of existing addressing schemes, and more may be incorporated over time.