'American Idol' Online Voting Wants Your First-Born?

After years on the air, "American Idol" has finally hit a long-awaited milestone - offering the option of online voting to fans watching at home. The show's producers have stated that they were waiting until they had a secure way to offer online voting, and Facebook apparently has the right solution for them.

Unfortunately, Facebook's solution is perhaps a little too secure.

A thread called "The Online Voting Sucks" has been created on the official "American Idol" forum. Among the complaints from users are mentions that the required Facebook login through the "American Idol" website requires a surprising amount of access to personal Facebook data. One user even sarcastically stated that voting online "would require giving up my first born to AT&T."

FOX stated that the information dig was neccessary in order to verify each voter. A good deal of security is required for proper online voting in order to prevent any gaming of the system, creating programs to submit repeat votes, or hacking the site and swaying votes. It might seem like a silly thing to do, but the internet is a big place and there are a lot of bored hackers.

The online voting not only required access to one's Facebook profile information, but also required access to one's friends list, a step that many considered to be one too far. Why would AT&T or "American Idol" need to know who your friends are, other than to spam them?

What do you think? Did you try the online voting system? How protective are you of your Facebook info?