8 ms·

I disagree that it is your data. If I befriend you on Facebook I am not giving you permission to bulk import my information into any old website which may or ma

I disagree that it is your data. If I befriend you on Facebook I am not giving you permission to bulk import my information into any old website which may or may not treat that information respectfully. People are focused on Google but forget that if they enabled this your information could be bulk imported into schemy websites who only want the data to spam. Even if those applications get banned it's too late if you're the one getting spammed and your information sold to other spam lists. The key here is that Facebook relationships are not people you trust. They are people you kind sorta know. That doesn't imply that they are trustworthy enough to hand over your personal information to do whatever they wish with.

chc 15y ago
Don't fool yourself. If they're not that trustworthy, you shouldn't be friending them, because preventing known Chrome extensions from doing this does not prevent the other 5000 ways (including a pen and paper) of doing the same thing.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  If I only befriended people I trust with my personal data my profile would have a half a dozen friends, or less. Making it difficult for people to do something stupid is a superior strategy to making it easy for them to do so.
  - Flenser 15y ago
    If you only trust 6 people to have access to your email address then customise Facebook's privacy settings to only let those people see it. You don't have to trade data security for access to friends. Facebook can't protect you from every way your friends could mishandle the data you give them access to. If you don't want them to have access to part of your profile it's up to you to set your privacy permissions appropriately, and it's Facebook's responsibility to make that as easy as possible (which they haven't).
- Silhouette 15y ago
  I would be offended if my friends started giving out my personal details to random businesses using a pen and paper, too. I don't personally use Facebook, having abandoned it almost immediately precisely because my friends were collectively volunteering all kinds of information that I considered private. Today, my friends know this is my view and it's not a problem, nor am I the only one of my group who takes this view. Obviously it took a while before my views became known, though. In any case, this whole black-and-white idea that if you volunteer any personal information to friends on one service with privacy controls you might trust then that information is fair game for anyone to give to anyone else is just silly. If it weren't, Facebook themselves wouldn't have been pressured repeatedly into creating and maintaining all those privacy controls even though it's not really in their interests to do so and they've tried to reduce them again and failed on several occasions.
  - chc 15y ago
    But this isn't a random business. They decided, intentionally, that they wanted to put your personal information in there. True story: I have manually entered personal information (name, email, birthday, phone number) for many of my friends into my email accounts' address books over the years. They have done the same to me. It's expected. That's what I was saying: If you're going to let people see all your personal info, it should be people you would trust to use that info properly. Facebook stopping Google from importing your info but allowing Yahoo to do so won't protect you at all.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      It's not my friends I don't trust, it's Google.
      - chc 15y ago
        Then you should ask your friends not to enter your info into their Gmail address books, and only give your info to you people you trust to honor that request. That's where the trust comes in. If you give your info to people, you must trust that they will not misuse it, whatever "misuse" means to you. Google's import tool would not sneak onto your friends' computers at night and surreptitiously import your data against their wishes, and lacking that tool will not stop your friends from "giving" your info to Google. Facebook blocking one method for one company to import your data is not security; it's just corporate warfare.
icebraining 15y ago
What if they use it to, you know, email you and by doing that they give it to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo or even some shady mail provider they use? I don't really see the difference.

chc 15y ago

Don't fool yourself. If they're not that trustworthy, you shouldn't be friending them, because preventing known Chrome extensions from doing this does not prevent the other 5000 ways (including a pen and paper) of doing the same thing.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
If I only befriended people I trust with my personal data my profile would have a half a dozen friends, or less. Making it difficult for people to do something stupid is a superior strategy to making it easy for them to do so.
- Flenser 15y ago
  If you only trust 6 people to have access to your email address then customise Facebook's privacy settings to only let those people see it. You don't have to trade data security for access to friends. Facebook can't protect you from every way your friends could mishandle the data you give them access to. If you don't want them to have access to part of your profile it's up to you to set your privacy permissions appropriately, and it's Facebook's responsibility to make that as easy as possible (which they haven't).
Silhouette 15y ago
I would be offended if my friends started giving out my personal details to random businesses using a pen and paper, too. I don't personally use Facebook, having abandoned it almost immediately precisely because my friends were collectively volunteering all kinds of information that I considered private. Today, my friends know this is my view and it's not a problem, nor am I the only one of my group who takes this view. Obviously it took a while before my views became known, though. In any case, this whole black-and-white idea that if you volunteer any personal information to friends on one service with privacy controls you might trust then that information is fair game for anyone to give to anyone else is just silly. If it weren't, Facebook themselves wouldn't have been pressured repeatedly into creating and maintaining all those privacy controls even though it's not really in their interests to do so and they've tried to reduce them again and failed on several occasions.
- chc 15y ago
  But this isn't a random business. They decided, intentionally, that they wanted to put your personal information in there. True story: I have manually entered personal information (name, email, birthday, phone number) for many of my friends into my email accounts' address books over the years. They have done the same to me. It's expected. That's what I was saying: If you're going to let people see all your personal info, it should be people you would trust to use that info properly. Facebook stopping Google from importing your info but allowing Yahoo to do so won't protect you at all.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    It's not my friends I don't trust, it's Google.
    - chc 15y ago
      Then you should ask your friends not to enter your info into their Gmail address books, and only give your info to you people you trust to honor that request. That's where the trust comes in. If you give your info to people, you must trust that they will not misuse it, whatever "misuse" means to you. Google's import tool would not sneak onto your friends' computers at night and surreptitiously import your data against their wishes, and lacking that tool will not stop your friends from "giving" your info to Google. Facebook blocking one method for one company to import your data is not security; it's just corporate warfare.

icebraining 15y ago

What if they use it to, you know, email you and by doing that they give it to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo or even some shady mail provider they use? I don't really see the difference.