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MySpace, then Facebook and then Google all recently launched services for third parties to access their users’ data through other sites.

Google, though, uses Facebook’s developer platform to distribute Facebook user data through its own service, Google Friend Connect. Now, Facebook has cut off that access.

When Google announced Friend Connect on Monday, I asked the company for clarification on its relationship with Facebook — strangely, Google didn’t offer MySpace data even though those two companies are partners on Open Social. A main point of the announcement, after all, was that Open Social applications could run on other sites, with better access to social networks’ data.

Instead, Google announced that third party developers would be able to access data from Orkut, smaller Open Social member network hi5 and Linked — and Facebook. Google, it seems, wanted to see just how open Facebook’ social network rival was.

For Google’s response to my question, check out this audio clip. As the company tells me in the clip, it has no business relationship with Facebook.

From the Facebook company blog, today:

In the past, when we found applications passing user data to another party (for instance, to ad networks for the purpose of targeting), we suspended those applications and worked with those developers to ensure they respect user privacy. Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service. Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance. We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose.

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Reprinted with permission from VentureBeat. Story copyright 2008 VentureBeat Inc. All rights reserved.

Comments

i like facebook but why can't i get on


The only way Facebook seems to have value as an organisation is from the number of people on its site and the advertising it is trying to make money from, so it seemed a little strange to me that it would allow others to take its prized assets and place them with others. The whole data portability thing feels too good to be true, although great news for other sites on the web that can benefit from Facebook's community dropping by.

I hope the matter gets resolved, although maybe it will keep the situation stalled for long enough for someone else to come along and present a better way of doing the whole thing -- such as an independent site holding user information and authorising social networks to use it, but it stays in the possession of the independent, chosen by the user...

Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz


You see the picture above?
4 sites converging to "Google" friend Contact?

Wonder why it cannot be "Yahoo" friend Contact or "Myspace" Friend contact ?
Google cannot play MONOPOLY and take it all - so there can be just one site
through which I can connect / exchange to all other sites ?

Why then should I visit those other sites ? How they do their small or big businesses?
Someone should put a brake on monopolizing things in the name of new, catchynamed technologies !


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