Google has decided to stop Facebook from accessing users’ contacts lists, accusing the social network of “trapping” data.
Google will no longer let other web services automatically import email contact data for their own purposes, unless the information flows both ways. It accused Facebook in particular of siphoning up Google contact data, without allowing for the automatic import and export of Facebook users’ information.
Facebook, with more than 500 million users, relies on email services such as Google’s Gmail to help new users find friends already on the network. When a person joins, they are asked to import their Gmail contact list into the social network service. Facebook then tells the user which email contacts are also on the social network.
In a statement, Google said websites such as Facebook “leave users in a data dead end.”
“We have decided to change our approach slightly to reflect the fact that users often aren’t aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook, they are effectively trapped,” Google said in a statement.
“We will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users’ Google Contacts unless they allow similar export to other sites.”
Google said that users will still be able to manually download their contacts to their computers in “an open, machine-readable format” which can then be imported into any web service.
Last month, Facebook announced a deal with Microsoft allowing Facebook information — such as web pages that Facebook users have endorsed by clicking on “like” buttons — to appear within Microsoft search results.
Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in September the company would add social “layers” to many of its existing web products in the coming months, following its less-than-stellar track record of developing stand-alone social networking products like Orkut and the recently closed Wave service. The search giant has acquired several small social networking companies in recent months, including Slide and payment company Jambool.
[Reuters]
