Google Asks Users To Complain Against Facebook

dkd903 writes "A kind of war has been going on recently between Facebook and Google over a contact export issue. First, Google blocked Facebook access to the Gmail contacts API. To this, Facebook responded back with a new method to get Gmail contacts of a user (the download contacts option). And now Google has slapped back again at Facebook and asks users indirectly to file a data protectionism complaint against Facebook. When a Facebook user clicks on the Download Your Contacts button on the 'Facebook import contact via Gmail' page, the user is then redirected to a new page on Google's server, which looks something like this..." Can I just say that watching this is absolutely hysterical?

Comments

Suck it up Zuck.

[unity100]

yeah zuckerberg. suck it up. you rode on the web culture getting to where you are. you cannot just go protectionist on us and become a control freak. share data, as others share data with you.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[Pojut]

This whole Google/Facebook thing is just yet another example of how greed directly impacts user experiences.

I just wish they would get their pissing match done with and play nice. Seriously. This isn't doing ANYONE any good.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Actually, he/they are successfully doing just that because most users don't know or care . This is an interesting move on Google's part, in that it actually increases awareness. Still, that being said, I suspect the average response would be [for those who bother to read it and don't just find the easiest way to click through - the typical response to *any* 'helpful interferences'] "Um, ok. Why would I want to to take my facebook info somewhere else? It's facebook."

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[Anonymous Coward]

No worse than trying to watch TV with huge scrolling banners over it whining about how this station won't renew their contract, superimposed by the cable company over the station's huge scrolling banner whining about how the cable company is screwing them.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[guybrush3pwood]

It's not doing any harm, either, since facebook is useless. So don't be mean and let the children play...

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[qubezz]

In fact, Google is doing a very good thing by aggravating Facebook.

Consider the stupidity of giving Facebook your email username and password, so that Facebook can log in to your email account as you, and scrape all your contact info. (While they are at it, why don't they get your emails too...) They've conned people into doing just that.

If you have any contact with a Gmail account user, Facebook gets your email address when the user sheepishly turn over their contact list to Facebook to automatically 'find friends'. If Facebook didn't already amass data on unwilling non-users (thanks to picture tags and such), they now have a wealth of email information about who knows who. And don't forget, their profit model is selling your privacy.

Google should make it possible to permanently blacklist your email address from its 'export' feature through a web form, even if you have a non-gmail address, so that your gmail 'friends' can't offer up your email address out of their contact lists to third parties.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[pspahn]

Heck, even Slashdot has several icons next to every single damn comment

News to me. I don't see any icons.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[Stregano]

Actually this is doing me a great deal of good since I know my contact information will not be floating on facebook from g-mail users

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[MoonBuggy]

I just wish they would get their pissing match done with and play nice. Seriously. This isn't doing ANYONE any good.

They may be doing it for entirely selfish reasons, but the fact of the matter is that Google are bringing forward the argument about open access to one's data.

Many thousands of people who's eyes would glaze over at the mere mention of open document formats or API interoperability are being told in no uncertain terms that their data will be trapped by a non-open service, and that this can lead to bad things further down the line.

Now if only Google considered it profitable to make a similar stand against those manufacturers who decide to treat the end user as an adversary in terms of access to their own device, we might really get somewhere.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[BlackPignouf]

I totally agree with what you say.

Facebook does know a lot of stuff about a lot of people, and I totally understand that it can piss the Slashdot crowd off.

BUT, Google knows a lot more stuff about a lot more people.

For example, Facebook knows which kind of Pizzas I prefer and which skateboard videos I like to share, but that's about it.

On the other hand, Google :
- can read my e-mails
- can look at my calendar
- knows my bank account number
- knows my address and my telephone number. Ditto my girlfriend's, my parents', my friends'.
- knows what I buy on Ebay/Amazon (thanks to confirmation e-mails)
- knows what I look for on the Internet
- knows which RSS feeds I'd like to read, and which I actually read.

I'd like to see them display a big "WARNING" page next time I log in to one of their services, just so that they can explain me what exactly they're doing with my data, why I should care and why I could think I don't like it.

Until then, they're just being a bunch of hypocrites, and use this "Don't be evil" & "Oh noes! Facebook doesn't let you export your data" to maintain their monopoly on screwing with the world data.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[Ken D]

Wouldn't giving Facebook your username and password be a violation of the following clause from Gmail's TOS?

# Sell, trade, resell or otherwise exploit for any unauthorized commercial purpose or transfer any Gmail account

or perhaps (since contacts include email addresses)

Generate or facilitate unsolicited commercial email ("spam"). Such activity includes, but is not limited to

...
# data mining any web property (including Google) to find email addresses

...
# selling, exchanging or distributing to a third party the email addresses of any person without such person's knowing and continued consent to such disclosure

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[Anonymous Coward]

The key difference is that you gave Google all of that information. I have no idea who the hell is putting my information up on Facebook, and not only can they put it up there for Facebook to have it, they can put it up there for EVERYBODY to have it.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[david_thornley]

Seriously. This isn't doing ANYONE any good.

Are you kidding? It's making it more difficult for Facebook users to mail out Facebook invites to everybody in their contacts list. That's doing a lot of people a lot of good.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[revlayle]

Then once they are friended to you in the system, the collection of information that builds about your contacts/friends on FB becomed "trapped" in the FB system. Of course, you can always "hand-copy" lots of it to another system, but you cannot simply get a data file or export of you contacts/friends that are on FB into an easily portable format to put in another system. Conversely, FB doesn't think it is a problem that they can import the data from many other places to easily start your collection of friend info

I *think* THAT's the point.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of pages that suck in facebook is fewer than the number that suck in something from Google. For example, slashdot sucks in something from google-analytics but not facebook.

The number of widgets that are attributed to Google watching everything you do on the web is far greater than facebook or twitter.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[reeno49]

lulwut? How is this insightful? It's funny, for sure. But insightful? Really?

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[guyminuslife]

Beats me. I often get mismoderated.

Can I just say...

[RapmasterT]

...that since I don't have a Facebook account, it's less hysterical to me, and more like watching retarded monkeys fling feces at each other, but miss (because they're retarded) so nothing actually interesting ever happens.

I gotta admit I don't get the whole Facebook thing. It seems like just another in the long string of hot social thing of the moment that's going to be supplanted by the next hot social thing of the moment in 3...2...1...

Why are we getting pulled into this turf war?

[Last_Available_Usern]

I loved how I was able to auto-add friends based on my Gmail contacts. It saved me so much time searching and adding manually. I still love how the picture from Facebook is integrated into my contacts automatically on my phone. I'm sure there are other examples I'm overlooking as well. The bottom line is, the data in my contacts in mine. The data on my Facebook site is mine. I'm accepting the risk by sharing the credentials of either site with the other. Take your turf war elsewhere guys and let me have my integration.

Re:Why are we getting pulled into this turf war?

[CraftyJack]

The bottom line is, the data in my contacts in mine. The data on my Facebook site is mine.

shattered illusions in 3...2...

Re:Why are we getting pulled into this turf war?

[qubezz]

Your 'friends' might argue that their email address is theirs. They might appreciate a friend that doesn't give out their email address to data collectors and spammers. It looks like people in your contact list are accepting the risk of knowing you.

Re:Why are we getting pulled into this turf war?

[AndyAndyAndyAndy]

The data on my Facebook site is mined.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[Eil]

People and corporations must be made aware that they have no right to hang on to user's personal data without giving them the choice to export it in an easy and convenient way.

People must be made aware that they have the right to not submit personal data in the first place.

Re:Can I just say...

[RapmasterT]

Yeah...Facebook has been the hot social thing of the moment for almost an entire decade. Aren't you edgy with your opinions???

Facebook didn't overtake Myspace until 2008. Is two years almost a decade in your world?

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[MozeeToby]

So wait... how exactly can I view, let alone export, all the personal data that Google has collected on me over the years? What if I want to switch to a different search engine but don't want to lose all the behind the scenes tweaking that can be done with a good decades worth of search history?

Size of FB is frightening

[should_be_linear]

Google must be concerned because FB is becoming so big that it looks like Internet 2.0 itself. I bet search volume on FB is getting close to Google.com, and this is not even core business for FB. I hate FB as much as anyone else, but Larry or Sergey should take all their money and buy FB if they don't want to become "that other Internet company".

Mark Zuckerbutt vs. Eric Shmuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Google: "after all, you should have control over your data."*

Me: "Yes, Eric, irreversibly and irretrievably delete all of my data."

Google: "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

* http://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.html