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.

[bhagwad]

If you want to register a complaint, here is the page where Google allows you to do so: http://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.html

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.

[KiloByte]

Yeah. By the way, it's incredible how much you can speed the average page by adblocking facebook.com and fbcdn.net -- at least on a decent browser (Firefox, sadly not Chrome (yet?)). It's scary how big a percentage of pages bear Facebook and Twatter widgets. Heck, even Slashdot has several icons next to every single damn comment -- everyone I know, even including people who use Facebook, adblock these too which shows how annoying they are.

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.

[icebike]

Really? It does me good.

I'm sick of getting facebook invites because some fool with my address in his address book decided to upload the entire list to facebook, without so much as a "by your leave".

My address(s) live quietly in lots of people's google contacts and I get no spam at all from that. Yet ONE person uploads that to facebook and facebook themselves start spamming me, followed in rapid succession by pill pushers and foreign diplomats, dethroned princes, and ousted former heads of state, all with lots of money they want to share with me.

I fail to see the greed tie in here.

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.

[D'Sphitz]

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

Thanks for taking care of the obligatory "popular things suck" stance, very insightful as usual. /golfclap

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.

[Nadaka]

Last I checked, you don't actually have to give facebook your login credentials for gmail or yahoo, both gmail and yahoo have an api for exporting contacts. You won't be prompted for your username/password if you are already logged into your email.

Linkedin however does ask for your username and password.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[poetmatt]

do you even know what you're talking about?

google wants data to be bidirectional - you can take your information out of facebook, you can take your information into facebook.

It's google trying to get facebook to acknowledge better privacy standards.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[guyminuslife]

It's a popular position to take. I was part of the "Popular Things Suck" Facebook group until too many people joined it; now it sucks.

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.

[BlackSnake112]

Actually facebook keeps the data and sells it to their 'partners'. Who in turn sell that info to their partners. And so on.

I found this out when I was getting my info removed for a people info database. They got the info about me from facebook. I do not now or have ever had a facebook account. My sister does have a facebook account. All of her contacts were in that people data website. It took a few phone calls, emails, and threats to contact the state attorney general office to get it removed.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[reeno49]

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

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[Ol Olsoc]

Facebook does not suck because it is popular. Facebook sucks because it sucks.

Re:Suck it up Zuck.

[beaviz]

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.

Is someone doing this?

Great. I'm doing it now

[bhagwad]

Just registered a complaint. This is the right thing to do. 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.

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Just registered a complaint. This is the right thing to do. 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.

The question is, what did registering a complaint do? Your name and email are not attached, so what good, exactly, is that complaint supposed to do except allow google to say "X number of users complained about your unfair practices, so there!" Oh, wait - it goes to Facebook. Who has already demonstrated that it doesn't really care about this issue... and successfully so, since most people are happily continuing to use Facebook in spite of it .

Basically it comes down to whether Zuckerberg decides if he cares about the bad PR. If he doesn't, too bad -- unless you and a couple hundred million others are going to stop using Facebook in protest.

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: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?

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[ach1000]

https://www.google.com/dashboard

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[AaxelB]

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?

https://www.google.com/history/

I don't know if they provide an export feature, but all the searches you made while logged in are there. I found out I've done 11307 searches! That's actually fewer than I thought... It's pretty interesting to look at what I was searching for 4 years ago.

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[Dashiva Dan]

If google gets, say, a million complaints sent through, and facebook does nothing, then the Google can make public "We forwarded a million complaints, and facebook did nothing", which, if timed correctly, probably as facebook makes some "we listen to our users, if 100,000 people ask for something, then we do it" type publicity, google can trot this out... Not saying they would, or should need to, but it's hanging over facebook's head unless they deal with it. Google is just being the 'big backer' for our complaints, thus giving them credibility.
Sure, perhaps there are better things that could be done, but this is surely better than Google doing nothing?

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[Adm.Wiggin]

Why don't you try clicking on one, then? https://www.google.com/history/lookup?st=web

Re:Great. I'm doing it now

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It won't hurt, that's true. And FB ignoring it does cast Google in a positive light; I'm just saying that they don't have the leverage they need to force Facebook's hand. As long as FB isn't losing a significant number of users (and given their user base, that would need to be quite a lot) all Google can *actually* do is give Facebook some bad PR that will be forgotten in a month anyway.

Since I'm not particularly invested in either side of this, I have to agree with the poster: watching all this chest-thumping is pretty amusing.

To each his own

[iluvcapra]

Can I just say that watching his is absolutely hysterical?

Can I just say that watching the founder of slashdot attempt to type a typo- and misspelling-free sentence is absolutely hysterical?

Unnecessary

[The Yuckinator]

I don't need Google to tell me to not like Facebook.

Re:Unnecessary

[AnonymousClown]

I don't need Google to tell me to not like Facebook.

Let me see Should I hate Facebook

The answer looks like a "Yes."

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...

I Did What They Told Me To!

[eldavojohn]

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.

Google told me to complain to Facebook so I did. Then all my friends asked me why I was posting images of child porn on my Facebook wall. So I went back to Google and complained about that and now a Google van slowly circles my house twenty four hours everyday. I went on Google maps to look at my house but there's just an image of a smoldering crater and a Jolly Roger. I logged back on to Facebook and Zuckerberg had killed my farmer and was raping my livestock as the fields burned.

I'm scared. I don't think I'll get in the middle of this kinda stuff next time. You can have all my data locked up, I just want my Farmville to be okay! Why, piggy, why!? I loveded you, I loveded you piggy!

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?

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".

Re:Size of FB is frightening

[Triv]

I bet search volume on FB is getting close to Google.com, and this is not even core business for FB.

You spend WAAAAAAAAAY too much time on Facebook if your perspective on their share of the internet search market is that narrow.

Facebook, as of February, was sitting at 700 status updates a second. Know how many google searches were made every second as of February? 34,000.

So no, not close. Not even close to close.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

> The data on my Facebook site is mine.

That's where you have a misunderstanding.

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.

Not apples to apples

[jfine]

I can certainly appreciate Google's stance on the subject. I've been saying for years its reprehensible how Facebook acts as a one way silo for personal information. They've gotten a bit better about it but only after getting raked over the preverbal coals for months and months. Frankly I don't trust Facebook as far as I can throw them which at their current size is close to nothing. Facebook has demonstrated time and time again that their focus is not on protecting users and providing value to the web. In fact quite the opposite, to move towards a AOLy version of the web where Facebook is the web. They're only as "open" as much as it benefits them, ie reduced PR exposure or added page views or users. However, this comparison is not an apples to apples. It is my understanding (and I could be wrong or things could have changed as they do on almost a daily basis at Facebook) that when you "import" friends from Google (or any other service) that Facebook is simply providing a matching service and only adding friends if they exist on Facebook. They are not acting as a contact list provider in the sense that I can not import my dogs website nor change my friends phone number if I like to use his home number instead of his cell number for his main number etc. Although it could be agreed that with all your friends on Facebook they are by default playing the roll of contact list and are not being fairly bi-directional. Facebook wants you messaging your friends within the confines of the system (more page views, more lock in, more details they can scrape about you) and is the main reason why they don't want you exporting your contacts.

Re:"Looks something like this"?

[Boba001]

They should have just linked directly to Google:

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

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

[tibman]

You are correct. Now try to reverse the process... ow, not able to get your facebook stuff into Gmail? Well, now you understand why there is a battle.

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

[AndyAndyAndyAndy]

The data on my Facebook site is mined.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Who's Laughing Now?

[Chapter80]

This is the first time Google has ever actually attempted to wield power.

Huh?

Net Neutrality, Spectrum Auction, Defining the mobile platform, and battling Microsoft all immediately come to mind as times that Google has attempted to wield power.

I'm sure we could come up with others if we thought about it.

Re:Could this Backfire?

[angloquebecer]

How about the fact Google doesn't stop you at all? You can still click to go ahead with the gmail export. Google is trying to make all the non-Slashdot-Freedom-Fans aware that while Google lets you export your data freely, Facebook doesn't offer the same benefi.ts

Re:Suck it up Zuck

[jlarocco]

Is that a joke? There are a bunch of ad blockers for Chrome. My favorite is AdThwart. But the regular AdBlock works well also. They're at least as good, if not better, than the ad blockers available for Firefox, Opera, and Konqueror.