23 ms·

Gmail: Trap my contacts now (warning when exporting contacts to Facebook)

470 points by bjonathan 16y ago

ukdm 16y ago
Is this a new warning page that has been added following Facebook's actions, or one that has been around a while?
- bjonathan 16y ago
  Apparently it's a new
- spdy 16y ago
  This gets better and better. Time to grab some popcorn. And i really like this move from google.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    Actually this is boring - where are the HD explosions? The glib remarks by the heros? The hot babe they are trying to save? Even Michael Bay was better than this.
    - 9ec4c12949a4f3 16y ago
      Are you kidding me? Clearly you don't have the kickass bookmarklett installed. http://erkie.github.com/ http://erkie.github.com/
  - ax0n 16y ago
    I used it to register a complaint even though I have no blood in this game. In general, I agree with Google's stance on this one, despite the fact that the motives are anything but altruistic as their verbiage tries to imply.
- anupj 16y ago
  yes, it's definitely new and it looks likely that this was added to warn facebook users who are tyring to export their google contacts.
- etherealG 16y ago
  facebook's actions?
corin_ 16y ago
It's so nice of these two companies to be spending their time and money creating this great entertainment for all of us
- linhat 16y ago
  entertainment aside, i just really wonder, what comes next, as i am afraid there will be only one true loser, us, the user.
- pama 16y ago
  Maybe this can inspire some better movies?
  - jmeyers 16y ago
    Maybe this can inspire the replacement for Face book.
trevelyan 16y ago
Google is being silly. First because they're breaking the usability of THEIR own site out of an invented vendetta against a company that is just using the feature they created and made available. If they don't believe people should be able to export data from Gmail they should stop offering it generally and compete against other email providers with a more closed platform, not whine about reciprocity from sites that are not in their business. Second because they are in the wrong. The last thing in the world I want is my friends on Facebook to be able to give MY email address to random third-parties in return for free virtual pets or whatever Zynga is giving away this week. Google's moralism would mean much more spam and a far worse experience with Facebook. My being a "friend" with someone does not imply permission to let them give my contact information to third parties. Who is Google to say otherwise?
- moxiemk1 16y ago
  Facebook has, I assume, the ability to discern me from an app, and so easily could give me a way to export my friends contact information made visible to me while simultaneously not giving it to Farmville.
  - trevelyan 16y ago
    Why should anyone consider it reasonable to insist that someone else needs to create an API that selectively differentiates between users based on arbitrary and easily spoofed technical criteria? This makes no sense. It is expensive technically and expensive in terms of the development time and effort needed to maintain it. Not to mention easily fooled. Google is keeping its data export open because it's providing an email service and is in competition with Yahoo and Hotmail. Perhaps they're not so sure about whether that is a good idea. If they think their business model has a problem they should fix the problem, not lecture Facebook about how the company runs its own business.
    - alex_c 16y ago
      >Why should anyone consider it reasonable to insist that someone else needs to create an API that selectively differentiates between users based on arbitrary and easily spoofed technical criteria? This makes no sense. It is expensive technically and expensive in terms of the development time and effort needed to maintain it. Not to mention easily fooled. What? The distinction between apps and users is already very clear at every level in Facebook. I don't understand what technical issues you're talking about. This could be an issue for people who blindly accept spam friend requests, but not for apps. Just because users get an export function doesn't automatically mean apps do as well, unless Facebook specifically implements it.
joakin 16y ago
Fortunately this gives more info to average users about their data and what's happening with it Maybe they will care some day ...
RoyceFullerton 16y ago
"I recognize that once it’s been imported to another service, that service may not allow me to export it back out." I could see how this could scare the average user into thinking their contacts are moved from Google to facebook and stuck there, thus loosing their ability to use them within Google's products. Do you think this is the intention?
- racerrick 16y ago
  It's a big "F U" to Facebook because they don't reciprocate.
- jerryr 16y ago
  The wording is definitely questionable. The savvy user will understand that if contacts are imported into Facebook and maintained there, changes can't be exported or synched back to Google--a valid concern. But the current warning copy doesn't quite capture that and seems to imply, as you've mentioned, that your data is moved. Google is so engineering-oriented, I can't tell if this was an honest, poor choice of wording or intentionally vague for the purpose of inducing fear. I'm not against the warning if it's in the spirit of educating users about how to keep their data "free", but if this is indeed vendetta as others here are suggesting...well, that's Google's prerogative, but this method would seem a bit unprofessional. If they want to attack Facebook, I'd have more respect if they were explicit about it in this warning.
eiji 16y ago
Facebook could allow users to "Opt-in" an email export. If I'm not "Opt-in", only my name would be exported by me and my friends. We all know that Opt-in is like "does not exist", but they could at least say they are open. edit: They could even sell it as a privacy feature ...
- yock 16y ago
  Facebook would have to offer such a facility in order to allow users to opt-in, and there seems to be plenty of evidence that they do not want to do that.
- NolF 16y ago
  Facebook already offers your contact information to Microsoft and Yahoo. However, I think friends who have emails set as "only me" or equivalent do not export. I tried the feature today and 10% of my contacts did not export to yahoo :/
pama 16y ago
I just used this link and saved my contacts, just in case this story leads to more dramatic actions. I also tested the register complaint button and, sure enough, my complaint was duly registered (though nobody explained what this means). Interestingly enough, I could have done both in one step, by checking both boxes and getting a long button reading: "download my contact information and register complaint".
illumin8 16y ago
The warning says: "Here’s the not-so-fine print. You have been directed to this page from a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends." I think this is misleading - Doesn't Facebook allow you to download all of your data, just like Google? As much as I dislike Facebook's privacy policies, the mudslinging seems a little thick from both sides. Facebook and Google - two of the biggest privacy violating companies on the planet. May you live in interesting times, indeed.
- cpr 16y ago
  No, you can't get your "friends"' email info out.
  - illumin8 16y ago
    I see, thanks for the clarification. So, you can download all of your pictures and wall posts, but not contact data.
  - daten 16y ago
    There are several apps like this one that claim to export your friends and email address to CSV format. http://apps.facebook.com/friendstocsv/ http://apps.facebook.com/friendstocsv/
    - sudonim 16y ago
      I didn't try it, but looking at the comments, it won't export email addresses http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=32853197098&v=app_6261817190 http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=32853197098&...
- nkassis 16y ago
  Facebook to my knowledge does not let you export your friends email addresses in a way that they could be synced with your email service. I think that if they did, it would be beneficial to everyone. Their claim that email addresses are private is bogus. They could add buttons to the privacy settings that would allow a user to block their email from being access by friends. There is no valid, as in non anti competitive, reason to hold on to names and email of your Facebook friends. I'm just waiting for Facebook to release a real email service ala gmail in the near future to escalate this battle.
nkassis 16y ago
I'm just waiting for the backroom deal between the two that will allow two way sharing between only them.
- jrockway 16y ago
  But Google lets you export your data. So if Facebook exports to Google, then your data can go anywhere, and we've won!
  - patio11 16y ago
    It appears that Google only allows you to export your data as long as the metrics show that no significant number of people actually do so.
    - RK 16y ago
      Why do you say this? Orkut?
    - vedang 16y ago
      how does it appear so?
    - davorak 16y ago
      I would also like to see any evidence you have for this claim.
- subbu 16y ago
  Not likely especially when the big MS daddy is looking around!
  - nailer 16y ago
    huh? Microsoft make windows and office, and don't have a dominant web presence.
    - subbu 16y ago
paraschopra 16y ago
"Select one or more options. Cancel and go back" I liked this. So Godfatheresque!
- reledi 16y ago
  The other options are the check boxes. New buttons will appear when checked.
  - netaddict 16y ago
    The check boxes aren't even visible in my chrome. http://imgur.com/qMpND http://imgur.com/qMpND I don't know if this is a bug.
atourino 16y ago
It seems to me that their wording pushes their anti Facebook data locking agenda, intimidating novice users. To me, this goes against their "don't be evil" company motto.
- maggit 16y ago
  To me it embodies their "don't be evil" company motto. I think Facebook is being evil here, and Google is fighting the good cause. However, I can see your angle as well. It seems that the world is not black and white after all :(
  - atourino 16y ago
    That Facebook is evil or not is irrelevant, I think. (I happen to think that their interests and the privacy interests of their users are not aligned at all). Google is fighting the good cause, ok, I agree. But the method they used in this instance is not the best. They could've simply said: "Hey look man. Facebook wants us to give them your contact data. These are the possible consequences: 1., 2., 3. Are you sure?" Their current wording implies (to me) that a user's data is all going to be imported and kept inside of FB and nowhere else (which is a key point), which is not true as Google holds the user's data as well. There will be divergence afterwards as the user begins to use Google and FB in different ways. But yeah, I do see that FB is not an easy place to get your data out of, but Google is using users' data as a pressure point to force FB's hand. What would be interesting to find out is if they are defending privacy because it's a noble thing to do, or if they are just defending privacy because it happens to benefit them in some other way. edit: added "and nowhere else (which is a key point)"
dsplittgerber 16y ago
It allegedly registered my complaint without me being logged-in, so whatever they do, it's for show only? This reeks of a cheap shot.
- stuartloxton 16y ago
  Just because your not signed in doesn't mean it can't register a complaint - by not tracking username or personal details with the complaint the point of being signed in is reduced to nothing. They can't even make sure you do it twice without tracking your user ID (which they won't do because they could then get username or password). Therefore being able to register a complaint not signed in seems odd but fine.
  - dsplittgerber 16y ago
    That's the whole point I was making. When it doesn't register username or any kind of identifiable information, it just counts 'votes', which doesn't amount to anything, as in the end it's just an arbitrary number open to manipulations. What do they want to achieve by having the user click a button just to feel good?
    - floatingatoll 16y ago
      I think it would be short-sighted of Google to simply count votes without recording some sort of "authenticated" bit for later use. Counting 'votes' provides useful data for Google internal decision-making. Counting 'authenticated votes' provides useful data for Google to publish. Lacking any information from Google, it is unclear whether this is just a "feel good" button or if it's an actual authenticated vote-counting system.
alain94040 16y ago
What bothers me is that Google is taking the stance that they have the right to lock my data in their service if they feel like it. That's why that position, to me, is untenable. Don't do evil indeed: you just conceded the other side (Facebook) their main argument (that they don't have to be open, only if they feel like it).
- mquander 16y ago
  In what way is Google taking that stance? Last I checked, Google was taking the exactly opposite stance. http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/
  - alain94040 16y ago
    Obviously I must have phrased my position wrong, based on the reaction. Yes, they are taking that stance, since they are imposing conditions on exporting data from gmail. If I owned and could do anything I wanted with my data on gmail, then Google could not impose restrictions. They just did (in their API restrictions). That's what I'm very concerned about.
    - mquander 16y ago
      Well, I want an API where I can get all my Gmail messages with their metadata, all formatted as Clojure maps. Is Google imposing restrictions on me because nobody has bothered implementing that? Not really. It's analogous. As long as Google provides ways to get all your data that are free, public, easy to parse, and well-documented, they aren't imposing restrictions. If they add extra APIs or additional formats on top of that, it's gravy. Remember, the point of having these exports is to be able to get your data out and switch from service to service, so that the market stays competitive. It's not so that you have a fully-automated Google API for your profile that other programs can interact with.
    - nlogn 16y ago
      This sounds to me like arguing over whether BSD is more free than GPL. Google made it difficult (but still not impossible) for other services to gain access to your contacts data if those services are unwilling to reciprocate. The goal of this is obviously to incentivize companies to allow you to export your data from them (which increases competition and is better for the consumer). There is still nothing stopping you from exporting your contacts to a CSV and importing them elsewhere.
ck2 16y ago
I approve a warning 1000% - it's not like they are stopping you from exporting. This will slow down my AOL-using friends who gave away all their contact info to Facebook and now I get pelted with spam from Facebook using my name and list of friends (and I don't even have a Facebook account). Google has never spammed me or share my name and location, Facebook does it all the time, pick who's more evil.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Actually, it is like they stop you from exporting. Here's the message I get when I try to import my contacts into Faceboook: Google did not return any of your contacts. You can still find your friends on Facebook by uploading a file of your Gmail contacts below. ... followed by instructions on how to download my gmail contacts to a file and re-upload them. So it seems that Google's implementation of their "whining at you about their problems while you're just trying to get on with your life" page is broken. The end result is that you cannot export your contacts from Gmail at the present.
  - dedward 16y ago
    You can export them just fine - they just aren't allowing a 3rd party site to automatically import them - they're making you consciously do it yourself. To someone who can do it either way, this may just seem like an annoyance, but a great many people won't grasp the severity of what they are about to do by handing their credentials for gmail over to facebook.
    - jasonkester 16y ago
      Exactly. One week ago, you could seamlessly import them into Facebook. - That's a big step back. - It makes things worse for their users. - There is no positive effect from the change. - They did it on purpose. We're all here because we build web apps for a living. And none of us would ever consider doing something like that with one of our own sites. I have no idea why anybody at Google thought that this was a good idea.
gizmomagico 16y ago
This is such bullshit. A service that won't let me "get my contact information out"? Nice way to frame this in terms of "openness" too, apparently riding "open" for all it's worth with Android is not enough. Can I just "get out" all of my personal information from Google? No? Isn't Google "open" enough to let me do it? We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there. Did you also think it was super duper important with a cherry and smarmy bullshit on top to let me know before you gave Facebook my GMail contacts behind the scenes when I was registering there earlier this year? No, and I was disgusted when Facebook started suggesting them for "friends" right away.
- moultano 16y ago
  >Can I just "get out" all of my personal information from Google? Mostly yes. http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/
  - gizmomagico 16y ago
    And Google won't be keeping a copy of anything you export or "move" out, right? I'm not terribly interested in a chance to "get out" my data from services that will keep my data anyway. They also did give Facebook my GMail contacts, which I thought was scuzzy, but hey that's alright as long as I can export stuff out from various Google services!
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  Your rant makes no sense to me. You seem to be complaining that Google has erected a confirmation page making it marginally harder to get your contact info out and then at the end complain that it was too easy before when Google let Facebook snatch it all?
  - gizmomagico 16y ago
    Google has been giving up people's contact information (without their consent) from GMail to Facebook for a long time. It's safe to assume Google has been getting something in return all along, but now something's changed, and they decided to make a big fuss about the whole thing. Then they say things like: a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends. Locking up? --> "Open" vs "Closed" again. So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out. I bet that most people would think of "getting something out" as removing it. They make it sound like you should be able to remove "your data" from Facebook.. you are always free to download your contacts using the export feature in Google Contacts .. As if Google letting you export things from various Google services amounted to the same thing, which it doesn't. No matter how much you export your data, Google will still be keeping a copy of everything, so talking about "getting it out" is disingenuous. Because, after all, you should have control over your data. Why did Google give "my data" to Facebook without asking me, or even notifying me about it then? After several years of handing people's contact information over to FB behind the scenes, why is it suddenly important that I have control over my data? Disingenuous. But this is all just a PR-stunt and an attack against Facebook combined. Open vs Closed again, and Google parading around as a champion of Openness and your rights, when in the end, both parties are just corporations and only interested in making money off of you and "your" data.
kwamenum86 16y ago
I am not sure if the back and forth between Google and Facebook is intriguing or just childish at this point. Neither is doing this for the users. They are doing it to help their services grow and ultimately to help their bottom line grow. Believing anything else would be naive at this point.
- jaiwithani 16y ago
  Yes, but on this users' (or at least my) interests and Google's coincide.
wooptoo 16y ago
A big middle finger to FB.
janulrich 16y ago
It's great how they used check boxes to make the submit button appear. It makes it more likely that people will actually read the warning.
gabrielmazzotti 16y ago
jajajaja Gmail rules!
oemera 16y ago
This is a really clever move from Google and I think many people will read this and stop giving there data to Facebook. I have a dump feeling about giving all of my data to Facebook cause they have sure enough. Otherwise: it's free and they are making money with your data right?
jasonkester 16y ago
As luck would have it, I picked today to set up a Facebook profile for me girlfriend. I'm now really angry with Google. It used to be a 30 second task to sift through your address book and check off people to send friend requests to. Now, thanks to Google behaving like children, I need to figure out how to export her contacts as a text file so that I can upload it to Facebook. Google, please stop. You are pissing off your customers. Edit: subsititure Users for Customers in the previous sentence if it helps you to parse it. The end result is still the same: The people who use Google's service are being punished by Google for the actions of a 3rd party.
- gazrogers 16y ago
  Customers? How much money have you paid Google for services this year?
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    A few grand, give or take. Why does that change anything? Edit: Google charges for things like AdWords, of which I am a heavy user. So yes, people do in fact pay them money for things.
    - stanleydrew 16y ago
      Cut the snark. We all know you haven't paid a few grand for gmail this year.
      - cookiecaper 16y ago
        This has way too many upvotes. There are _lots_ of people who pay Google money for isolated, corporate installations of Gmail and the rest of the Google Apps suite. And whether Gmail is paid for as an explicit line-item or not isn't what matters here; most of the money that funds Gmail comes from AdWords and Google's behavior with Gmail impresses upon AdWords customers. It's all done with Google's name and image and it all reflects back on Google collectively. It's perfectly fine to feel sad when a vendor does something you don't like with a "bonus product", even if you weren't billed specifically for your usage of that product.
sssparkkk 16y ago
Maybe google is trying to get facebook to open up now, so it'll be in time for everyone to be able to use it to migrate to Google Me.
portman 16y ago
Le sigh. I think Google has lost sight of something very simple in this fracas: With Google Contacts, the user directly manages his contacts' email addresses. With Facebook, the user delegates management of email address to his contacts. These are not the same thing. The Google contacts team seems to think that Facebook is an address book just like them. They are not. And to me, that failure to understand the differences is the root source of all this tomfoolery. -- Edit after some very welcome discussion downstream: On GMail, my contacts' email addresses are MY data. On Facebook, my contacts' email addresses are NOT my data. The FACT that I am connected to my contacts is my data, but any information about those contacts does not belong to me. This is why Facebook is not an address book, and pretending it as an address book where "your data gets stuck" is bound to lead to frustration for everyone.
- akozak 16y ago
  I don't think the difference is very important. I've almost never manually added a contact into Google and my contacts list has been built up by years of correspondence. In a sense, the people I've been emailing determine which address shows up in my contacts list. In any case, even if there is a big difference, you haven't really said why the debate hinges on a failure to understand it.
  - blahedo 16y ago
    No, you don't understand the distinction portman is making. It's not between "type in email myself" vs "harvest from email", i.e. a question of data entry. It's a question of management. With Google Contacts, I'm the one that updates an email address if someone else's address changes. With Facebook, all I manage is the list of contacts, while the contact manages their own email address. Which means that when someone changes their email address, I don't need to either know or care. And crucially, if someone I email infrequently changes their email, there's no danger that I "miss the window" and lose the contact entirely. That's a pretty big difference.
    - stanleydrew 16y ago
      It is a pretty big difference, but I still don't see how failing to understand it on google's part (and they probably do understand it) is the source of all this.
luckyland 16y ago
But does it work with Orkut?
scrrr 16y ago
Interesting how the tide seems to turn. My Conspiracy theory: I think Facebook might have gone to far with Facebook Deals. Now Groupon, its friends and other bystanders start to react less kindly to Facebook's business model: Copying ideas from other websites with nothing in return. Oh, well.
sdrinf 16y ago
Are there any publicly traded betting pool for this? I've got 10 bucks saying FB will open up their data silos (at least for Google) within the next 12 months :)
chrischen 16y ago
Google should also point out that if Facebook lets you export your friends' emails then your friends can do the same to your email. And that if that happens one bad or compromised friend can give yours and everyone else's emails to spammers. Same thing can happen with Google Contacts, but the difference is that on Contacts you give out your email. On Facebook you signup with an email and then you "friend" someone.
phjohnst 16y ago
There is a point that hasn't yet been mentioned here about the fundamental difference between an address book, and Facebook. Facebook is okay to be a dead-end for contacts' emails, since the email upload is used once to find others on the service. After that, if you need to contact someone else on Facebook, you can do so with a wall post or an inbox message. The email address is irrelevant. With an address book, you need it to be portable, since the medium is accessible from many different locations and services. The fact is that you dont need to get your friends' contact details out of Facebook. You sign up for Facebook to make Friends on Facebook and communicate over Facebook. Not to communicate over email, etc. (And certainly not over a rival network.) When you add someone to your address book, you do so to communicate with them over email, or phone, or whatever, which are inherently completely open and interconnected systems. [Surely there is a debate to be had here about the ubiquity of Facebook as a platform and that it should be open - could you imagine Facebook Clients? But I dont believe that's a debate about exporting existing contact info.] To that end, Google warning users about the terminal nature of their exported data is unnecessary and only confuses the process of finding friends for users (who, by the way, aren't thinking about data portability, or building up an address book/contacts list on Facebook, they're thinking about making Friends on Facebook, to communicate over Facebook) TL;DR: This whole mess doesn't matter, and Google is only making things complicated for users.
- brianpan 16y ago
  You don't need to use the email upload once either. That's the point. Google's making it clear that you getting something from them "for free" and you won't be able to go back in the future.
- Tyr42 16y ago
  >The email address is irrelevant. I disagree. My usage pattern is to use facebook to find a person, then get their email and contact them through email, since I check my email more frequently than I do my facebook. (which is almost never, since I have it send me anything important by email.)
  - phjohnst 16y ago
zoowar 16y ago
Ironically, control of personal data ends once the data has been shared, by you or any of your friends. Terms of Service often enable a company to collect and share your data as they see fit.
ajaimk 16y ago
Alternate heading: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
kmavm 16y ago
Here's what Google had to say about social networks and email exporting less than one year ago: "Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a user friends someone they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click." The occasion was Google disabling exporting of contacts from Orkut to Facebook. I happen to think that both Google then, and Facebook now, are perfectly correct. However, I am curious how those who see Google as clearly in the right, and Facebook as clearly in the wrong, would reconcile Google's statement and actions of a year ago with its statements and actions of the last several days. Edit: citation http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-facebook-by-making-friend-export-tool-nearly-useless/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-...
kyledreger 16y ago
I want a page to see the total number of "complaints" Google has collected so far. Just curious as to how many people actually picked that option.
itsnotvalid 16y ago
Apparently, it's just for Facebook only. https://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.html https://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.htm... By the link of this, one can see that only exporting to Facebook would render this confirmation message.

470 points by bjonathan 16y ago

ukdm 16y ago

Is this a new warning page that has been added following Facebook's actions, or one that has been around a while?

bjonathan 16y ago
Apparently it's a new
spdy 16y ago
This gets better and better. Time to grab some popcorn. And i really like this move from google.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  Actually this is boring - where are the HD explosions? The glib remarks by the heros? The hot babe they are trying to save? Even Michael Bay was better than this.
  - 9ec4c12949a4f3 16y ago
    Are you kidding me? Clearly you don't have the kickass bookmarklett installed. http://erkie.github.com/ http://erkie.github.com/
- ax0n 16y ago
  I used it to register a complaint even though I have no blood in this game. In general, I agree with Google's stance on this one, despite the fact that the motives are anything but altruistic as their verbiage tries to imply.
anupj 16y ago
yes, it's definitely new and it looks likely that this was added to warn facebook users who are tyring to export their google contacts.
etherealG 16y ago
facebook's actions?

corin_ 16y ago

It's so nice of these two companies to be spending their time and money creating this great entertainment for all of us

linhat 16y ago
entertainment aside, i just really wonder, what comes next, as i am afraid there will be only one true loser, us, the user.
pama 16y ago
Maybe this can inspire some better movies?
- jmeyers 16y ago
  Maybe this can inspire the replacement for Face book.

trevelyan 16y ago

Google is being silly. First because they're breaking the usability of THEIR own site out of an invented vendetta against a company that is just using the feature they created and made available. If they don't believe people should be able to export data from Gmail they should stop offering it generally and compete against other email providers with a more closed platform, not whine about reciprocity from sites that are not in their business. Second because they are in the wrong. The last thing in the world I want is my friends on Facebook to be able to give MY email address to random third-parties in return for free virtual pets or whatever Zynga is giving away this week. Google's moralism would mean much more spam and a far worse experience with Facebook. My being a "friend" with someone does not imply permission to let them give my contact information to third parties. Who is Google to say otherwise?

moxiemk1 16y ago
Facebook has, I assume, the ability to discern me from an app, and so easily could give me a way to export my friends contact information made visible to me while simultaneously not giving it to Farmville.
- trevelyan 16y ago
  Why should anyone consider it reasonable to insist that someone else needs to create an API that selectively differentiates between users based on arbitrary and easily spoofed technical criteria? This makes no sense. It is expensive technically and expensive in terms of the development time and effort needed to maintain it. Not to mention easily fooled. Google is keeping its data export open because it's providing an email service and is in competition with Yahoo and Hotmail. Perhaps they're not so sure about whether that is a good idea. If they think their business model has a problem they should fix the problem, not lecture Facebook about how the company runs its own business.
  - alex_c 16y ago
    >Why should anyone consider it reasonable to insist that someone else needs to create an API that selectively differentiates between users based on arbitrary and easily spoofed technical criteria? This makes no sense. It is expensive technically and expensive in terms of the development time and effort needed to maintain it. Not to mention easily fooled. What? The distinction between apps and users is already very clear at every level in Facebook. I don't understand what technical issues you're talking about. This could be an issue for people who blindly accept spam friend requests, but not for apps. Just because users get an export function doesn't automatically mean apps do as well, unless Facebook specifically implements it.

joakin 16y ago

Fortunately this gives more info to average users about their data and what's happening with it Maybe they will care some day ...

RoyceFullerton 16y ago

"I recognize that once it’s been imported to another service, that service may not allow me to export it back out." I could see how this could scare the average user into thinking their contacts are moved from Google to facebook and stuck there, thus loosing their ability to use them within Google's products. Do you think this is the intention?

racerrick 16y ago
It's a big "F U" to Facebook because they don't reciprocate.
jerryr 16y ago
The wording is definitely questionable. The savvy user will understand that if contacts are imported into Facebook and maintained there, changes can't be exported or synched back to Google--a valid concern. But the current warning copy doesn't quite capture that and seems to imply, as you've mentioned, that your data is moved. Google is so engineering-oriented, I can't tell if this was an honest, poor choice of wording or intentionally vague for the purpose of inducing fear. I'm not against the warning if it's in the spirit of educating users about how to keep their data "free", but if this is indeed vendetta as others here are suggesting...well, that's Google's prerogative, but this method would seem a bit unprofessional. If they want to attack Facebook, I'd have more respect if they were explicit about it in this warning.

eiji 16y ago

Facebook could allow users to "Opt-in" an email export. If I'm not "Opt-in", only my name would be exported by me and my friends. We all know that Opt-in is like "does not exist", but they could at least say they are open. edit: They could even sell it as a privacy feature ...

yock 16y ago
Facebook would have to offer such a facility in order to allow users to opt-in, and there seems to be plenty of evidence that they do not want to do that.
NolF 16y ago
Facebook already offers your contact information to Microsoft and Yahoo. However, I think friends who have emails set as "only me" or equivalent do not export. I tried the feature today and 10% of my contacts did not export to yahoo :/

pama 16y ago

I just used this link and saved my contacts, just in case this story leads to more dramatic actions. I also tested the register complaint button and, sure enough, my complaint was duly registered (though nobody explained what this means). Interestingly enough, I could have done both in one step, by checking both boxes and getting a long button reading: "download my contact information and register complaint".

illumin8 16y ago

The warning says: "Here’s the not-so-fine print. You have been directed to this page from a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends." I think this is misleading - Doesn't Facebook allow you to download all of your data, just like Google? As much as I dislike Facebook's privacy policies, the mudslinging seems a little thick from both sides. Facebook and Google - two of the biggest privacy violating companies on the planet. May you live in interesting times, indeed.

cpr 16y ago
No, you can't get your "friends"' email info out.
- illumin8 16y ago
  I see, thanks for the clarification. So, you can download all of your pictures and wall posts, but not contact data.
- daten 16y ago
  There are several apps like this one that claim to export your friends and email address to CSV format. http://apps.facebook.com/friendstocsv/ http://apps.facebook.com/friendstocsv/
  - sudonim 16y ago
    I didn't try it, but looking at the comments, it won't export email addresses http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=32853197098&v=app_6261817190 http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=32853197098&...
nkassis 16y ago
Facebook to my knowledge does not let you export your friends email addresses in a way that they could be synced with your email service. I think that if they did, it would be beneficial to everyone. Their claim that email addresses are private is bogus. They could add buttons to the privacy settings that would allow a user to block their email from being access by friends. There is no valid, as in non anti competitive, reason to hold on to names and email of your Facebook friends. I'm just waiting for Facebook to release a real email service ala gmail in the near future to escalate this battle.

nkassis 16y ago

I'm just waiting for the backroom deal between the two that will allow two way sharing between only them.

jrockway 16y ago
But Google lets you export your data. So if Facebook exports to Google, then your data can go anywhere, and we've won!
- patio11 16y ago
  It appears that Google only allows you to export your data as long as the metrics show that no significant number of people actually do so.
  - RK 16y ago
    Why do you say this? Orkut?
  - vedang 16y ago
    how does it appear so?
  - davorak 16y ago
    I would also like to see any evidence you have for this claim.
subbu 16y ago
Not likely especially when the big MS daddy is looking around!
- nailer 16y ago
  huh? Microsoft make windows and office, and don't have a dominant web presence.
  - subbu 16y ago

paraschopra 16y ago

"Select one or more options. Cancel and go back" I liked this. So Godfatheresque!

reledi 16y ago
The other options are the check boxes. New buttons will appear when checked.
- netaddict 16y ago
  The check boxes aren't even visible in my chrome. http://imgur.com/qMpND http://imgur.com/qMpND I don't know if this is a bug.

atourino 16y ago

It seems to me that their wording pushes their anti Facebook data locking agenda, intimidating novice users. To me, this goes against their "don't be evil" company motto.

maggit 16y ago
To me it embodies their "don't be evil" company motto. I think Facebook is being evil here, and Google is fighting the good cause. However, I can see your angle as well. It seems that the world is not black and white after all :(
- atourino 16y ago
  That Facebook is evil or not is irrelevant, I think. (I happen to think that their interests and the privacy interests of their users are not aligned at all). Google is fighting the good cause, ok, I agree. But the method they used in this instance is not the best. They could've simply said: "Hey look man. Facebook wants us to give them your contact data. These are the possible consequences: 1., 2., 3. Are you sure?" Their current wording implies (to me) that a user's data is all going to be imported and kept inside of FB and nowhere else (which is a key point), which is not true as Google holds the user's data as well. There will be divergence afterwards as the user begins to use Google and FB in different ways. But yeah, I do see that FB is not an easy place to get your data out of, but Google is using users' data as a pressure point to force FB's hand. What would be interesting to find out is if they are defending privacy because it's a noble thing to do, or if they are just defending privacy because it happens to benefit them in some other way. edit: added "and nowhere else (which is a key point)"

dsplittgerber 16y ago

It allegedly registered my complaint without me being logged-in, so whatever they do, it's for show only? This reeks of a cheap shot.

stuartloxton 16y ago
Just because your not signed in doesn't mean it can't register a complaint - by not tracking username or personal details with the complaint the point of being signed in is reduced to nothing. They can't even make sure you do it twice without tracking your user ID (which they won't do because they could then get username or password). Therefore being able to register a complaint not signed in seems odd but fine.
- dsplittgerber 16y ago
  That's the whole point I was making. When it doesn't register username or any kind of identifiable information, it just counts 'votes', which doesn't amount to anything, as in the end it's just an arbitrary number open to manipulations. What do they want to achieve by having the user click a button just to feel good?
  - floatingatoll 16y ago
    I think it would be short-sighted of Google to simply count votes without recording some sort of "authenticated" bit for later use. Counting 'votes' provides useful data for Google internal decision-making. Counting 'authenticated votes' provides useful data for Google to publish. Lacking any information from Google, it is unclear whether this is just a "feel good" button or if it's an actual authenticated vote-counting system.

alain94040 16y ago

What bothers me is that Google is taking the stance that they have the right to lock my data in their service if they feel like it. That's why that position, to me, is untenable. Don't do evil indeed: you just conceded the other side (Facebook) their main argument (that they don't have to be open, only if they feel like it).

mquander 16y ago
In what way is Google taking that stance? Last I checked, Google was taking the exactly opposite stance. http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/
- alain94040 16y ago
  Obviously I must have phrased my position wrong, based on the reaction. Yes, they are taking that stance, since they are imposing conditions on exporting data from gmail. If I owned and could do anything I wanted with my data on gmail, then Google could not impose restrictions. They just did (in their API restrictions). That's what I'm very concerned about.
  - mquander 16y ago
    Well, I want an API where I can get all my Gmail messages with their metadata, all formatted as Clojure maps. Is Google imposing restrictions on me because nobody has bothered implementing that? Not really. It's analogous. As long as Google provides ways to get all your data that are free, public, easy to parse, and well-documented, they aren't imposing restrictions. If they add extra APIs or additional formats on top of that, it's gravy. Remember, the point of having these exports is to be able to get your data out and switch from service to service, so that the market stays competitive. It's not so that you have a fully-automated Google API for your profile that other programs can interact with.
  - nlogn 16y ago
    This sounds to me like arguing over whether BSD is more free than GPL. Google made it difficult (but still not impossible) for other services to gain access to your contacts data if those services are unwilling to reciprocate. The goal of this is obviously to incentivize companies to allow you to export your data from them (which increases competition and is better for the consumer). There is still nothing stopping you from exporting your contacts to a CSV and importing them elsewhere.

ck2 16y ago

I approve a warning 1000% - it's not like they are stopping you from exporting. This will slow down my AOL-using friends who gave away all their contact info to Facebook and now I get pelted with spam from Facebook using my name and list of friends (and I don't even have a Facebook account). Google has never spammed me or share my name and location, Facebook does it all the time, pick who's more evil.

jasonkester 16y ago
Actually, it is like they stop you from exporting. Here's the message I get when I try to import my contacts into Faceboook: Google did not return any of your contacts. You can still find your friends on Facebook by uploading a file of your Gmail contacts below. ... followed by instructions on how to download my gmail contacts to a file and re-upload them. So it seems that Google's implementation of their "whining at you about their problems while you're just trying to get on with your life" page is broken. The end result is that you cannot export your contacts from Gmail at the present.
- dedward 16y ago
  You can export them just fine - they just aren't allowing a 3rd party site to automatically import them - they're making you consciously do it yourself. To someone who can do it either way, this may just seem like an annoyance, but a great many people won't grasp the severity of what they are about to do by handing their credentials for gmail over to facebook.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    Exactly. One week ago, you could seamlessly import them into Facebook. - That's a big step back. - It makes things worse for their users. - There is no positive effect from the change. - They did it on purpose. We're all here because we build web apps for a living. And none of us would ever consider doing something like that with one of our own sites. I have no idea why anybody at Google thought that this was a good idea.

gizmomagico 16y ago

This is such bullshit. A service that won't let me "get my contact information out"? Nice way to frame this in terms of "openness" too, apparently riding "open" for all it's worth with Android is not enough. Can I just "get out" all of my personal information from Google? No? Isn't Google "open" enough to let me do it? We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there. Did you also think it was super duper important with a cherry and smarmy bullshit on top to let me know before you gave Facebook my GMail contacts behind the scenes when I was registering there earlier this year? No, and I was disgusted when Facebook started suggesting them for "friends" right away.

moultano 16y ago
>Can I just "get out" all of my personal information from Google? Mostly yes. http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/
- gizmomagico 16y ago
  And Google won't be keeping a copy of anything you export or "move" out, right? I'm not terribly interested in a chance to "get out" my data from services that will keep my data anyway. They also did give Facebook my GMail contacts, which I thought was scuzzy, but hey that's alright as long as I can export stuff out from various Google services!
stanleydrew 16y ago
Your rant makes no sense to me. You seem to be complaining that Google has erected a confirmation page making it marginally harder to get your contact info out and then at the end complain that it was too easy before when Google let Facebook snatch it all?
- gizmomagico 16y ago
  Google has been giving up people's contact information (without their consent) from GMail to Facebook for a long time. It's safe to assume Google has been getting something in return all along, but now something's changed, and they decided to make a big fuss about the whole thing. Then they say things like: a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends. Locking up? --> "Open" vs "Closed" again. So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out. I bet that most people would think of "getting something out" as removing it. They make it sound like you should be able to remove "your data" from Facebook.. you are always free to download your contacts using the export feature in Google Contacts .. As if Google letting you export things from various Google services amounted to the same thing, which it doesn't. No matter how much you export your data, Google will still be keeping a copy of everything, so talking about "getting it out" is disingenuous. Because, after all, you should have control over your data. Why did Google give "my data" to Facebook without asking me, or even notifying me about it then? After several years of handing people's contact information over to FB behind the scenes, why is it suddenly important that I have control over my data? Disingenuous. But this is all just a PR-stunt and an attack against Facebook combined. Open vs Closed again, and Google parading around as a champion of Openness and your rights, when in the end, both parties are just corporations and only interested in making money off of you and "your" data.

kwamenum86 16y ago

I am not sure if the back and forth between Google and Facebook is intriguing or just childish at this point. Neither is doing this for the users. They are doing it to help their services grow and ultimately to help their bottom line grow. Believing anything else would be naive at this point.

jaiwithani 16y ago
Yes, but on this users' (or at least my) interests and Google's coincide.

wooptoo 16y ago

A big middle finger to FB.

janulrich 16y ago

It's great how they used check boxes to make the submit button appear. It makes it more likely that people will actually read the warning.

gabrielmazzotti 16y ago

jajajaja Gmail rules!

oemera 16y ago

This is a really clever move from Google and I think many people will read this and stop giving there data to Facebook. I have a dump feeling about giving all of my data to Facebook cause they have sure enough. Otherwise: it's free and they are making money with your data right?

jasonkester 16y ago

As luck would have it, I picked today to set up a Facebook profile for me girlfriend. I'm now really angry with Google. It used to be a 30 second task to sift through your address book and check off people to send friend requests to. Now, thanks to Google behaving like children, I need to figure out how to export her contacts as a text file so that I can upload it to Facebook. Google, please stop. You are pissing off your customers. Edit: subsititure Users for Customers in the previous sentence if it helps you to parse it. The end result is still the same: The people who use Google's service are being punished by Google for the actions of a 3rd party.

gazrogers 16y ago
Customers? How much money have you paid Google for services this year?
- jasonkester 16y ago
  A few grand, give or take. Why does that change anything? Edit: Google charges for things like AdWords, of which I am a heavy user. So yes, people do in fact pay them money for things.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    Cut the snark. We all know you haven't paid a few grand for gmail this year.
    - cookiecaper 16y ago
      This has way too many upvotes. There are _lots_ of people who pay Google money for isolated, corporate installations of Gmail and the rest of the Google Apps suite. And whether Gmail is paid for as an explicit line-item or not isn't what matters here; most of the money that funds Gmail comes from AdWords and Google's behavior with Gmail impresses upon AdWords customers. It's all done with Google's name and image and it all reflects back on Google collectively. It's perfectly fine to feel sad when a vendor does something you don't like with a "bonus product", even if you weren't billed specifically for your usage of that product.

sssparkkk 16y ago

Maybe google is trying to get facebook to open up now, so it'll be in time for everyone to be able to use it to migrate to Google Me.

portman 16y ago

Le sigh. I think Google has lost sight of something very simple in this fracas: With Google Contacts, the user directly manages his contacts' email addresses. With Facebook, the user delegates management of email address to his contacts. These are not the same thing. The Google contacts team seems to think that Facebook is an address book just like them. They are not. And to me, that failure to understand the differences is the root source of all this tomfoolery. -- Edit after some very welcome discussion downstream: On GMail, my contacts' email addresses are MY data. On Facebook, my contacts' email addresses are NOT my data. The FACT that I am connected to my contacts is my data, but any information about those contacts does not belong to me. This is why Facebook is not an address book, and pretending it as an address book where "your data gets stuck" is bound to lead to frustration for everyone.

akozak 16y ago
I don't think the difference is very important. I've almost never manually added a contact into Google and my contacts list has been built up by years of correspondence. In a sense, the people I've been emailing determine which address shows up in my contacts list. In any case, even if there is a big difference, you haven't really said why the debate hinges on a failure to understand it.
- blahedo 16y ago
  No, you don't understand the distinction portman is making. It's not between "type in email myself" vs "harvest from email", i.e. a question of data entry. It's a question of management. With Google Contacts, I'm the one that updates an email address if someone else's address changes. With Facebook, all I manage is the list of contacts, while the contact manages their own email address. Which means that when someone changes their email address, I don't need to either know or care. And crucially, if someone I email infrequently changes their email, there's no danger that I "miss the window" and lose the contact entirely. That's a pretty big difference.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    It is a pretty big difference, but I still don't see how failing to understand it on google's part (and they probably do understand it) is the source of all this.

luckyland 16y ago

But does it work with Orkut?

scrrr 16y ago

Interesting how the tide seems to turn. My Conspiracy theory: I think Facebook might have gone to far with Facebook Deals. Now Groupon, its friends and other bystanders start to react less kindly to Facebook's business model: Copying ideas from other websites with nothing in return. Oh, well.

sdrinf 16y ago

Are there any publicly traded betting pool for this? I've got 10 bucks saying FB will open up their data silos (at least for Google) within the next 12 months :)

chrischen 16y ago

Google should also point out that if Facebook lets you export your friends' emails then your friends can do the same to your email. And that if that happens one bad or compromised friend can give yours and everyone else's emails to spammers. Same thing can happen with Google Contacts, but the difference is that on Contacts you give out your email. On Facebook you signup with an email and then you "friend" someone.

phjohnst 16y ago

There is a point that hasn't yet been mentioned here about the fundamental difference between an address book, and Facebook. Facebook is okay to be a dead-end for contacts' emails, since the email upload is used once to find others on the service. After that, if you need to contact someone else on Facebook, you can do so with a wall post or an inbox message. The email address is irrelevant. With an address book, you need it to be portable, since the medium is accessible from many different locations and services. The fact is that you dont need to get your friends' contact details out of Facebook. You sign up for Facebook to make Friends on Facebook and communicate over Facebook. Not to communicate over email, etc. (And certainly not over a rival network.) When you add someone to your address book, you do so to communicate with them over email, or phone, or whatever, which are inherently completely open and interconnected systems. [Surely there is a debate to be had here about the ubiquity of Facebook as a platform and that it should be open - could you imagine Facebook Clients? But I dont believe that's a debate about exporting existing contact info.] To that end, Google warning users about the terminal nature of their exported data is unnecessary and only confuses the process of finding friends for users (who, by the way, aren't thinking about data portability, or building up an address book/contacts list on Facebook, they're thinking about making Friends on Facebook, to communicate over Facebook) TL;DR: This whole mess doesn't matter, and Google is only making things complicated for users.

brianpan 16y ago
You don't need to use the email upload once either. That's the point. Google's making it clear that you getting something from them "for free" and you won't be able to go back in the future.
Tyr42 16y ago
>The email address is irrelevant. I disagree. My usage pattern is to use facebook to find a person, then get their email and contact them through email, since I check my email more frequently than I do my facebook. (which is almost never, since I have it send me anything important by email.)
- phjohnst 16y ago

zoowar 16y ago

Ironically, control of personal data ends once the data has been shared, by you or any of your friends. Terms of Service often enable a company to collect and share your data as they see fit.

ajaimk 16y ago

Alternate heading: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

kmavm 16y ago

Here's what Google had to say about social networks and email exporting less than one year ago: "Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a user friends someone they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click." The occasion was Google disabling exporting of contacts from Orkut to Facebook. I happen to think that both Google then, and Facebook now, are perfectly correct. However, I am curious how those who see Google as clearly in the right, and Facebook as clearly in the wrong, would reconcile Google's statement and actions of a year ago with its statements and actions of the last several days. Edit: citation http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-facebook-by-making-friend-export-tool-nearly-useless/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-...

kyledreger 16y ago

I want a page to see the total number of "complaints" Google has collected so far. Just curious as to how many people actually picked that option.

itsnotvalid 16y ago

Apparently, it's just for Facebook only. https://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.html https://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.htm... By the link of this, one can see that only exporting to Facebook would render this confirmation message.