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Facebook Finds A New Way To Liberate Your Gmail Contact Data
- michaelhart 16y agoGoogle could easily fix this w/o impacting other services: block Facebook's referrer. And then present them with an opt-in page for Google.me... BOOM! Instant win? High five.
- c1sc0 16y agoI'm pretty sure Facebook would then remove the href on the link & tell people to copy/paste it into their browser.
- buro9 16y agoOr just put the link on a HTTPS page as referrer information isn't sent from those.
- michaelhart 16y agoGoogle could also make an API requiring an API key to access it (for services/tools that depend on it). Refuse to give Facebook an API key, and allow apps that depend on the current method to transition. Within 30 days or so, shut down access to it via the predictable URL and make it some crazy URL when they request it.
- konad 16y agoYou do know the referer header is optional don't you, I mean, you'd look pretty dumb relying on it for any web service because, you know, some crazy people turn them off altogether, perhaps with the Firefox add-on RefControl.
- sgift 16y agoI have seen various websites which use referrers despite this drawback. They will simply block you if your browser doesn't send a referrer.
- konad 16y agoDo you know any off hand ? I've had referer headers stripped for a few months now and afaik it's never caused my any problems.
- adambyrtek 16y agoYou're missing the point. It's not about disallowing importing the address book from Gmail to Facebook, it's about making it more difficult in order to force Facebook to offer reciprocity. You will always be able to export the CSV version of your Gmail address book yourself and feed it wherever you like. It's just slightly less convenient and the experience is not so smooth anymore.
- konad 16y agoWhat does that have to do with http referer headers ?
- michaelhart 16y agoI'm so glad someone understands.
- adn37 16y agoI do agree. Some people have referrer turned off, but afaik, they are the minority and this should do the trick. Google surely though about it. This also works the other way. If you rely on FB assets (images, ...), they can shut your access down immediately the very same way. Can't say I like it.
- gabea 16y agoGoogle could also block any facebook links from appearing as google search results if things become more tenuous. I highly doubt this would ever happen since they might face a heavy duty backlashing, but the thought is intriguing.
- chopsueyar 16y agoFacebook is not really optimized for SEO (walled-garden), so this would not be the strategic crowbar to their kneecap. IMHO, the better solution would be to blacklist all associated Facebook IP addresses and domain names from the Android OS.
- zyb09 16y agoBlacklist all Facebook IPs on Android? Haha, that's some heavy warfare you're talking about and I don't think the users will like that either.
- duskwuff 16y agoEither one would cross the line very quickly into anticompetitive behavior.
- IChrisI 16y agoFacebook could block all users that have an @gmail.com email address. I think Facebook has the bigger crowbar.
- dododo 16y agoor "facebook won't let you liberate your facebook data to alternate providers". i don't understand why people tolerate facebook. they don't seem deserving of the trust people give them. first opt-in/opt-out privacy issues, now this... plus it doesn't seem like they're really trying to make money yet. i suppose this is what the initial "exclusivity" of the facebook brand got them: loyalty without needing trust.
- johns 16y agoI wish I could make it seem like I wasn't trying to make money but pull in ~$1.2-2B this year[0][1] [0] http://www.allfacebook.com/facebooks-ad-revenue-to-surpass-12-billion-this-year-2010-08 http://www.allfacebook.com/facebooks-ad-revenue-to-surpass-1... [1] http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/facebook-will-hit-2-billion-2010-revenue-says-mob-of-unofficial-facebook-spokespersons/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/facebook-will-hit-2-billion...
- dododo 16y agothey have ~500 million users[0]. that's ~$4/user/year. [0] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
- michael_dorfman 16y agoYou know, I'd settle for $1/user/year, if I had 500 million users.
- jhancock 16y agoThis is a good point. A search engine like duckduckgo can choose to make much less by not tracking so much user data...and its still "enough". There are other vectors to bootstrap a friends/family sharing system that values privacy. Such a system can make a lot less than FB and still be "enough".
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- andreyf 16y agoUh, exporting your address book from Google and uploading it to Facebook is perfectly within any user's rights - it's a textbook example of data liberation. Now if only I could export my facebook pictures and easily import them into Picasa, or sync my facebook wall with my Buzz stream...
- indigoviolet 16y agohttp://techcrunch.com/2010/10/06/facebook-now-allows-you-to-download-your-information/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/06/facebook-now-allows-you-to-...
- Derferman 16y agoYour photos are easily accessible using the Graph API[1]. I wrote a python script which downloads all your photos and saves them to your computer[2]. However, I agree that Facebook doesn't make it easy for other web services to access stored data. [1]: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/photo http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/photo [2]: https://github.com/derferman/scrapebook https://github.com/derferman/scrapebook
- refulgentis 16y agogenuine question (this sounds a little smarmy but I know nothing about Graph API or web dev at all really): How is it not easy for other web services to access this stored data when a random guy can easily throw a script on GitHub to do it?
- andreyf 16y agoNot sure if this is the right answer, but a guess: it's easy for other web services to access this stored data if the user provides them with their Facebook login and password, which no self-respecting service would ever ask for. Even if Google did at one point get users to give up their facebook credentials, the API's they access will probably block IP's that try to access multiple users' data in a short amount of time. The best solution, IMO, is to use the browser as a platform: a Chrome extension can allow users to seamlessly sync data between services, because Chrome already has access both to your Facebook account and your Picasa account.
- RtodaAV 16y agoThe ball's in your court google
- yason 16y agoI would never give my gmail password to any third party proxy. So this is how I imported my gmail email addresses to facebook a few years ago in the first place. I took the export from Gmail in CSV format, cleaned out anything but email addresses, and fed them in Facebook.
- krosaen 16y agogoogle contacts supports oauth so you don't have to provide your password. I'm not sure whether facebook uses this support though
- RtodaAV 16y agoKinda off topic but does anybody know the status of ''Google Me''?
- ck2 16y agoWhat really upsets me about Facebook is I refuse to start an account there but they already know everything about me because they tricked all my AOL/gmail-using friends into giving them full access to their contact lists. So I constantly get spam from Facebook personalized with my name, location and list of friends, based on all the stupid data they have sucked up. It's borderline stalking.
- henrikschroder 16y agoJoining and locking down the account by disabling all the notifications would make them stop spamming you. Dunno what's more important to you, getting rid of the spam, or the principle of not having an account there?
- ck2 16y agoWait, cave-in to their bullying that I join their nonsense is a solution? Was that a joke? How about a class action lawsuit for unsolicited spam and data scrapping? Much longer to wait for results but much more satisfying.
- theclay 16y agoSounds to me like the "spam" you are complaining about is a communications service for your friends. No lawsuit there, unless every email you get from your friends but didn't ask for is also considered spam. Would an invite to gmail by a friend be considered spam? Nor is this "data scrapping[sic]" you mention anything of the sort if your friends deliberately requested, or passively acquiesced, to Facebook reading their address books.
- mrspeaker 16y agoGoogle should just get in contact with Hacker News - they are great at preventing their precious data from getting out. I've never seen a big data set go up on bit torrent and have all traces vanish so rapidly!
- bhavin 16y agoFacebook 'Liberating' you gmail contact data? Sounds like Nazis 'liberating' France in WW2.
- dawgr 16y agoI don't think the Nazis ever claimed to be liberating France. It was actually the Brits who wanted to "liberate" France but General de Gaulle kind of interfered with that by talking on the radio. But I know what you mean.
- codyguy 16y agoWonder if there will be statistics released on how many google users export data using this method. That would signal an interesting trend. Of course anything coming from Facebook HQ would have to taken with a pinch of salt.
- atamyrat 16y agoGoogle added private API to Android to make contact data imported through Facebook sync adapter in-accessible/invisible to other applications! Maybe Google should respond by removing that restriction. This API was implemented specially for Facebook and only used by them.
- noahkagan 16y agoand by liberate they mean spam.
- kmavm 16y agoSome points that are getting lost in the discussion below. I work at Facebook. 1. Facebook lets you export your data. It has been possible to do so ever since the graph API debuted in April '10. Since the market wasn't filling the gap, we even built a "download your information" product (https://register.facebook.com/editaccount.php https://register.facebook.com/editaccount.php -> Download Your Information). It gives you a zip file with all your contact info, photos, video, status updates, wall posts, etc. If somebody would like to write an importer for Diaspora, or Google Me, or even a non-vaporware competitor, they are well within Facebook's ToS, imho. 2. Facebook allows other sites programmatic access to the social graph. Yes, the supposed "crown jewels." That's exactly what Facebook Connect is for. You can see it in the wild on Pandora, Netflix, Yelp, Quora, and literally millions of other websites that are already doing what Google claims it wants to do: identify your Facebook friends. 3. Most importantly, what Google is insisting on is completely insane. The ability to export my friends' email sounds good, but as with so many social product ideas (e.g., themed backgrounds for profiles), it stops sounding so good when you realize everybody has the same power. Think of it instead as: all of your Facebook friends can export your email to anybody who writes a Facebook app. Those spam quizzes? Every farm simulation knock-off flash game? The day Facebook does this, every Facebook user will wake up with their inbox crammed solid with spam from random Facebook applications that they do not even use. What Google has not explained is why they need friends' email addresses, per se. Why couldn't whatever message they want to transmit be transmitted via Facebook messages, or wall posts, which send email notifications to almost all users anyway, and are already available via third-party APIs? This entire "not open enough!" straw man is a set of moving goalposts that Google will use to justify whatever competitive maneuvering they find convenient. Facebook is in the right here, people. The product decision Google is asking Facebook to take would be a disaster for Facebook users. Meanwhile, the lever Google is using to attack Facebook comes entirely at the expense of GMail's users, who before this episode were voting with their feet by the millions to import their contact data to Facebook, and no longer have that option. Google is making its users' lives worse, in an attempt to make Facebook make its users lives worse.
- mikebo 16y agoIf you agree it's wrong to allow a friend to export my e-mail address, why should Google allow it either? It seems like Facebook wants to have its cake and eat it too.