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As you probably know we launched Browser-Based Authentication. What this means is that users can grant third-party web-based applications access to their Yahoo! data. (Actually, this could be used for non web-based apps too.) For a more detailed explanation, go here.

Anyway, I’ll explain how this works using the Ruby interface I just wrote and (sorta) tested:

• Registering your web application: First off, you need to register your web application. After registration you’ll get your appid and shared secret.
• Logging-in users:

  obj = YBBAuth.new(appid, secret)
  obj.get_auth_url('')

  Once you get the auth URL, direct the user there. Now the user is informed that your amazing web application is asking for permissions (read, write or both) and whether he wishes to grant permission, etc. Once the user grants permission, Yahoo! will redirect the user to your application (you would’ve submitted the URL when registering for an appid).
• Getting user credentials: When Yahoo! redirects the user, it adds a token parameter to the URL. You need to extract this token in order to get user credentials:

  obj.get_access_credentials(token)

• Making an authenticated request: Now you can make authenticated GET/POST requests:

  obj.ws_auth_get_request('http://photos.yahooapis.com/V3.0/listAlbums')

  The above snippet makes use of the Yahoo! Photos API.

» The Ruby wrapper

The interface isn’t complete or well-tested (I have a flight to catch in a few hours so I need to leave in a bit). I’ll work on it in a day or two.