Google Challenges Facebook Over User Address Books

jcombel writes "When you sign in to Facebook, you had the option of importing your email contacts, to 'friend' them all on the social network. Importing the other way — easily copying your Facebook contacts to Gmail — required jumping through considerable copy/paste hoops or third-party scripts. Google said enough is enough, and they're no longer helping sites that don't allow two-way contact merging. The stated intention is standing their ground to persuade other sites into allowing users to have control of where their data goes — but will this just lead to more sites putting up 'data walls?'"

Comments

obviously it depends on who you friend

[SuperBanana]

Friends are in quotes, because Facebook friendship is more like shallow aquantances than friendship.

Uh, maybe for you? The only people I'm friends with on Facebook are people I know pretty well- people I've met, intend to meet again, and either am good friends with, or intend to get to be better friends. I've declined a number of friend requests from people I barely knew. And since I've looked at my friend's profiles on a regular basis, I can see all their email addresses. A number of them also have phone numbers and IM accounts visible; I do to all the people I've friended, because I want them to be able to get in touch.

I wish there was a term for the behavior I've seen for years on Slashdot, namely: assuming that because something has a certain level of utility or function for you, that it must be that way for everyone else. I've lost track of how many times someone has said "Oh, this technology is stupid, I can't _____________", and they don't even realize that they're not the target audience or that others might have a different use, experience, etc.