Facebook completely removes Gmail contact importing

Emil

Posts: 152   +0

It appears that the Facebook-Google data reciprocity war has come to a close. Facebook has removed Gmail from its list of third party e-mail providers on the "Find Friends" page, meaning that the Friends section of your Facebook account will no longer let you add a friend from Gmail.

Google says that it didn't change anything on its side so this appears to be solely Facebook's move, and it looks like the final blow. The Gmail contact import button is also gone from Friendfeed, a Facebook property since last year.

This war all started earlier this month when Google banned Facebook from accessing Gmail contact data by tweaking its Terms of Service for its Google Contacts Data API so that websites which access Google Contacts will need to offer access to their data too. Facebook has never allowed users to export their contact information.

The social networking giant still wanted its new users to find out whether their Gmail contacts also have Facebook accounts, so it implemented a workaround: the website told its users to use a Google feature that helped them download their own data, and then instructed them to upload the file back to Facebook. In attempt to convince you not to take your contacts to the social network, Google then fought back by showing a big warning message when Facebook users came to export their contact data from Gmail.

It appears that Facebook thought this would hurt its image, so not only has it removed the instructions and direct link downloads to Gmail contacts but the company has decided to remove support for Gmail completely. The war that Google started appears to have been finished by Facebook, but there doesn't appear to be a winner. Google's goal was to get access to Facebook's data, but it did not achieve this. Facebook, on the other hand, has made it very difficult for Gmail users to add their friends (read: they have to do it manually). As we've said before, while normally the user wins when two giants compete, this particular slew of bickering has led to a loss for everyone, including the consumer.

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Does that means anything? The giveaway is over so no more unneeded messages are required anymore.

I find this... strange, what could facebook know that google does not know already? Google wants to be able to send invites on facebook? That feels unneeded again (Hey I thought I was making up a word [My native language is not english so dont make fun of it xP]).
 
" The war that Google started appears to have been finished by Facebook"
I think the war was started by mostly consumers that desagree with Facebook's policies and those that didn't desagree ended up paying for it.
 
It was clear vlad... it started because Google thinks in data reciprocicy, and if facebook had access to googles data, google wanted facebooks data which they didnt want to give, after which google put a big bad warning about it when users tried to import their data from google to facebook, and now facebook simply took off the option to do that.
 
This doesn't happen often, but I think Google was in error for this situation. The reason is that Facebook works from a user authorized contact list. Where as with Google Contacts (or any other email app) it is user constructed. No authorization is required. Just because I allowed someone to be my friend or liked a page doesn't mean I want them to export my info and start emailing or calling me using mass mailer or SPAM techniques. There no other good reason for exporting data like that.

While I agree that it might be nice to export a conversation from Facebook, it seems kind of pointless to export only my comments. If Facebook were to allow exporting of information, then based on the way a friend group is built, they would need to send export requests every time someone tried to export.
 
If you dont automatically know who your friends are without using an automated service to add them to social networking, are they really worth adding to facebook/gmail anyway?

I think not.

Kel
 
I don't think Google was in error at all as both are data gathering companies. Facebook had access to get data out of Google and Google wanted the same from Facebook. Facebook said no and Google prevented access to its data. To me this is Facebook not playing fairly with others. They want data other companies gathered but were not willing to share some with them.

Whether it is contact information email adresses, or whatever this in the end was all about data gathering by both companies.
 
In the end it doesnt matter, it should be the user problem since IT IS HIS data of HIS friends or whatever.

Anyhow, I do second that if you dont know and have to auto-add your "friends" they are just not worth to add, its like those girls who have thousands of friends, just ridiculous (I actually think they use their account for data gathering, like the hot clearly images cut from the internet that add you out of nowhere and dont even live in the same country).
 
It's all about data mining, and at the top of the list of data-mining heap is Google. I have fought for years to keep my data personal, and keeping google out of my shorts. I dont want my junk email address linked to my personal email accounts in any remote way.

Last cheep attempt by google was to try to get my phone and cell numbers. I told them if they send me their CEO's number, then I will send mine.

It is point in fact that Google repeatedly breaks their own Terms of service by playing games with user account authorizations just to bleed the public of more data.

"Claims of "unusual" traffic on a persons email as an excuse to authorize using a phone number to verify the user?

Google has never been above using cheap tricks to get more data.
 
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