War has begun: Facebook banned Google Friend Connect

    Facebook announced today in a blog post that they had denied Google Friend Connect access to the Facebook API.

    Let's start with the chronology of product launches:
    on May 8, MySpace announced its Data Availability project , then on May 9, Facebook Connect was born , and the last to report on its product was Google Friend Connect . And all three projects are similar as twins, all use the same terminology: openness and portability, openness and portability of data, even the description of services is almost similar. We will not focus on a particularly suspicious nuance - the identity of the product names Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect.

    After Google launched Friend Connect, we had the opportunity to evaluate their technology. We have found that Google receives information about Facebook users without respecting the privacy conditions, which violates our Developer Terms of Service . And as a concern for our users, who may not understand what is happening, we were forced to suspend access to Facebook information for Google users until the situation is brought into compliance with standards


    They claim to have contacted Google several times on “this issue,” but it’s nowhere indicated what kind of conversations, if any, took place. It also does not specify exactly how Google Friend Connect violates the terms of service. All this is opaque and gives no explanation.
    Although…. This is all like a detective story, and it’s unlikely that it will be possible to deal with it with a simple translation, but the point is that Facebook changed the text in Developer Terms of Service (see TechCrunch for details ).

    However, the last paragraph of the blog also says that they want to work with everyone:
    We think MySpace Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, and Facebook Connect can be part of a huge driving force for the development of the entire industry, so that our users can better and more securely share experiences online, but with respect to user privacy


    Chris Kelly (Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook)
    The question boils down to the fact that Facebook users do not have control over them after porting data to Google Friend Connect.


    David Glazer (Director of Engineering for Google's data portability project)
    Once the synchronization with the Facebook account is received, and data exchange is allowed, as well as through the control panel in Facebook users can independently set and change settings, including rejecting porting applications, then all questions to the Facebook API. We were in “constant contact” with Facebook, and are still trying to establish a working dialogue in order to gain access to the API again. But Facebook has its own vision, and is not particularly in a hurry to resolve this conflict. Google takes absolutely adequate measures to protect the privacy of users with its Google Friend Connect. Facebook, in turn, controls the APIs, and they are able to add new features to solve this problem, but they do nothing, fueling the atmosphere, hoping to get something more


    The screenshot shows that Google allows you to “Disable” specific social networks from the IngridMichaelson website (on the right) or change data about what is common with the social network (on the left).



    Google, MySpace, Yahoo! and Facebook have huge ambitions in this game, and everyone wants to control a piece of the pie called social networks. MySpace and Facebook have their own “clean” social networks, but we must understand and remember that the data can also come from the Email and IM services.

    When Google announced the launch of Friend Connect, Google did not offer MySpace partnerships, despite the fact that the two companies are partners in the Open Social project. Instead, Google announced that third-party developers will be able to access data from Orkut, hi5 and Facebook. Apparently, Google wanted to understand how Facebook is actually open for cooperation.

    It is interesting to see competition in the data portability space. What seemed like science fiction only a year ago, is now an unforgiving trend: data will be free on all social networks. Or, as Charlene Li said, “social networks will be like air.”

    via The Social Trend

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