“We have a data-liberation engineering team dedicated to building import and export tools for users. We are not alone. Many other sites allow users to import and export their information, including contacts, quickly and easily. But sites that do not, such as Facebook, leave users in a data dead end,” Google said in a statement. “[W]e will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users’ Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites.”
“Can Google block this? One engineer I spoke with says yes, but it will be difficult: “If Google wanted to, they could block it immediately. it’s pretty simple. just put a CSRF token on the url to block deep linking but that might [mess] up other CSV flows. Maybe they have an outlook importer or something. facebook really went aggressive here.” It’s also a big middle finger to Google.”Following Facebook's action, Google responded. First, by issuing this statement:
We’re disappointed that Facebook didn’t invest their time in making it possible for their users to get their contacts out of Facebook. As passionate believers that people should be able to control the data they create, we will continue to allow our users to export their Google contacts.
Secondly, when users try following the instructions they received from Facebook, they are met with this page:
Although users can still opt to download their contact list for importing to Facebook, they are given Google's side of the argument. It isn't clear why these two companies are in such a slapping match. I think that it has a whole lot to do with Google's new social networking site “GoogleMe” which is slated to be released soon. The larger issue here is that Google doesn't want to allow Facebook to continue its data hording policies, and is concerned that the social networking site is attempting to fashion itself into the guardian of its users internet identity.
The Google supported group dataliberation.org, works to help Google users protect their data. They say that for a large internet company to “not be evil” they need to allow users to get out any data they have put in, and to not trap end user data. In their minds, Facebook is violating both of those ideals.
Google uses personal data from their users in order to target Ad-sense ads. The catch is that they don't keep the data or associate it with your account. With Facebook's new privacy policy, any data is associated with your name and profile photo, and also, getting your information out is next to impossible.
It will be interesting to see how this fight turns out. I, for one, wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of Google.
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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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