I recently signed up for a site that needed access to my Twitter account. It took me to a page where I opted to “Grant” access to the application; but now I really want to undo what I’ve done. I can’t seem to find a way to do it on the site. Any ideas?

Twitter have recently adopted a new standard for users to allow access to their account. It’s a method called OAuth and means that users don’t have to disclose their password to other websites that need to access their Twitter account. Adoption of an industry standard is a great idea; especially in something that’s as sensitive as the authorisation to access someone’s account.

Anyway, the new method uses a mechanism whereby the site offering the service sends you to Twitter where you can use your account to agree to provide access to the site. For example, here’s a site called Shizzow requesting access to my account:

Once the application has access to your Twitter account it can send messages on your behalf, access your Tweets and basically pretend to be you. This is fine if it’s an application you trust that is providing some value to your online experience; but sometimes rogue applications appear useful and you may wish to revoke this access. A service that sends jokes on your behalf might sound great at first, but may alienate your followers; getting HGH supplement recommendations automatically may be fine if you’re following that fad, but when you switch to something else, you may want to terminate the service’s access. Twitter has actually made this really easy to do if you know where to look.

If you go to the Settings section on Twitter, you’ll see a tab named Connections. Over here, Twitter lists all the applications you have allowed to access your account and gives you the option to revoke their access. Here’s what it looks like:

Once you click on Revoke Access, the application fades out:

You’ll notice that you have the option to Undo Revoke Access if you change your mind, but this is only available until you leave that page. If you want to reinstate access once again, you’ll have to start the process again from the beginning.