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May 15, 2008

The Social Network Wars Begin In Earnest: Facebook Bans Google Friend Connect

Michael Arrington

99 comments »

Update: More details here.

Facebook is all about openness and data portability, as long as that doesn’t involve openness or portability of data, it seems.

Today they wrote a long 7 paragraph blog post to get a single point across: Facebook has banned Google’s Friend Connect access to the Facebook API:

Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service. Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance. We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose.

This of course has nothing to do with the fact that Facebook launched their own nearly identically named product called Facebook Connect three days before Google’s Friend Connect.

It’s not clear exactly what features of Friend Connect justified the ban, since it is so similar to what Facebook announced on Friday. Both products allow the export of profile and friend list data to third party websites.

In the last paragraph of the blog post, Facebook says they want to work with everyone: “We think MySpace’s Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, and Facebook Connect can be part of a great movement in the industry to give users a better and safer experience online, while respecting user privacy. We look forward to working with our developer community and everyone else in the industry to help all of our users take their information, and their privacy, with them wherever they go.” If that’s the case, this sure is an interesting start to a healthy working relationship with Google. Next up on the block list: MySpace and their Data Availability malware product, no doubt.

Thanks for the tip, Jesse.

Update: Facebook PR is pointing out Sections 2B(4), 2B(5) and 2A9(vi) of the Developer Terms of Service:

4) You may not store any Facebook Properties in any Data Repository which enables any third party (other than the Applicable Facebook User for such Facebook Properties) to access or share the Facebook Properties without our prior written consent.

5) You may not sell, resell, lease, redistribute, license, sublicense or transfer all or any portion of the Facebook Properties, or use or store any Facebook Properties for any purpose other than as specifically authorized herein.

You will not use Facebook Platform or any of your Facebook Platform Applications, and your Facebook Platform Application will not be designed…(vi) to request, collect, solicit or otherwise obtain access to usernames, passwords or other authentication credentials from any Facebook Users, or to proxy authentication credentials for any Facebook Users for the purposes of automating logins to the Facebook Site.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Slimy

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Great news!

  2. Azhar

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    This was inevitable, I think it is a problem from Google’s side rather than Facebook’s. Facebook has always been serious about its users privacy.

  3. Zach Allia

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    it is nice to see them enforcing the TOS

  4. Alaska Miller

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:36 pm

    Yay! Just like how I couldn’t message my friends on MSN through AIM!

  5. david saintloth

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    It is somewhat disingenuous to conclude that Facebook is *against* portability simply because for the time being and for *clearly stated reasons* (violation of TOS …etc) they have banned the API access of friend connect. Before you can draw that conclusion you’d have to prove that their stated reasons are false and that hasn’t be done.

    Obviously, You have no requirement to apply scientific rigor to the analysis in posts on your blog site, but it would help the credibility of journalists that cover technology topics such as yourself Michael if you did and bolster your reputation, particularly amongst geek scientists (such as myself!) who prize scientific rigor in all analysis.

    FYI ;)

  6. MarciDesign

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:37 pm

    Rock on Facebook… Kudos!!

    M-

  7. RIAA

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    “It’s not clear exactly what features of Friend Connect justified the ban”

    here, ill make it easy for you.

    “We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge”

  8. dc crowley

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    \o/ ‘Raise the doublestandards’

  9. Ryan Merket

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

    Facebook owns the graph… it states in the platform TOS that you are not to STORE this information. And that is exactly what Google was doing with Friend Connect.

    You are allowed to call for user data from Facebook, but you are not to store it for more than 24 hours.

    Facebook Connect allows 3rd party sites to call user info and utilize the user’s social graph in real time. Google’s answer to this was to create an application that acted like Facebook Connect, but broke the TOS.

  10. Ryan Merket

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

    Michael,

    As long as Google and Myspace agree to use the user data in real time and not store it… then they can do whatever they with it.

    Real time. That’s the key.

    Ryan

  11. Michael Arrington

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

    RIAA - as far as I can tell, so does Facebook’s own friend connect product.

  12. Ummm

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    @7 “We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge”

    It’s not without users knowledge. A user has to specifically enable Friend Connect on FaceBook, and it clearly states what it is doing, and the user has to authorize it. The information which it distributes is your list of friends, which anyone can see by default unless switched off otherwise, and all of this is isolated inside of an IFRAME and not sent to the embedding sites.

    I think this was expected. Facebook got out-manuevered. FB Connect is another walled garden that ties sites directly to FB. Friend Connect proposed tearing down the walled garden and letting you see friends from any social network, not just OpenSocial ones. Google was clearly the more open one on this front, and they got slammed for using IFRAMEs when one of the primary reasons for using IFRAME jails is to simplify the security model.

    Will FB Connect interoperate with OpenSocial? I doubt it.

    Data Portability can’t arrive soon enough. These centralized lock-in walled garden social sites need to die. Facebook is on borrowed time.

  13. Barbara Ling

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    Does this remind anyone about eBay banning Google Checkout?

  14. John Martin

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    Maybe it looks like a war now, but hopefully all this “connect” technology will allow each of us friends to keep our data in one place instead of copying it over and over again on multiple sites. That would be the rest good news.

  15. Jesse Farmer

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    This is just another example of Facebook selectively enforcing the rules for their own benefit.

    It makes sense from a competitive angle — they want people to use their product, not Google’s — but it does make them look like Microsoft-sized bastards.

  16. Peter Urban

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    TechCrunch comment: Social Networ Wars Begins… 

  17. Ummm

    May 15th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    @9 Friend Connect does not store information. They specifically stated that it does not. It’s seems to be proxy plain and simple. The Facebook groupies don’t seem to get that Google is not the evil one here.

    Notice that there is no claim of storage in FB’s blog post, and the claims that they are violating TOS are vague. Google’s app doesn’t do much more than any other FB app, or FB Connect. I’m confident the blogosphere will reverse engineer Friend Connect as well, and show FB’s claims to be FUD.

    Let’s see, Google makes an app that clearly asks user permission to fetch their list of friends. Facebook bans it. How can they claim to be for data portability?

  18. Tony Mar

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    Google continues to push on opening up everyone else’s data but still keeps search in a walled garden. How about opening up search data on keywords, prices, and aggregate click information before pushing for everyone else to open their data.

    Google is the EVIL! Look at what they have done with search - they have moved their search APIs towards a more closed environment (with a draconian TOS) and yet they push to open up facebook and other people’s core business.

    Good job Facebook, fight Google!

  19. Tientien

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    How will Google response to this?

    Hmm.. it is difficult to define “STORE”. Instead of storing FB graph in AppData (which is considered as a store), the graph can be cached in other form on either client or server side. Will that be considered as STORE if FB graph is cached in the client side more than 24 hours?

  20. Dion Hinchcliffe

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    Google is definitely pulling an Aikido move on Facebook here (using its own strength in SNS profile counts against them). While I don’t see how investors would want anything different (preventing Google from being the preferred intermediary to Facebook’s own users on thousands of other sites) it is likely the Web community, for the most part, will disagree with this move, as do I.

  21. MyMesh.com

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    Quite unfortunate… :-|

  22. Tony Mar

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

    Dion,

    I think it’s silly to disagree with this move. Facebook is a business. Google is a business. You don’t see Google opening up their search engine or PPC data. You can’t get backlink information, you can’t volume or cost data. You can’t even use the search results easily anymore (since they got rid of the web services API in favor of a proprietary AJAX component that is highly limited and requires web publishers to embed a bunch of Google branding). It’s all closed, and becoming more closed! Google is the most hypocritical business out there.

    Why should facebook open up it’s data? Google is just trying to push hard on other vendors to open up their data, while they keep their crown jewels in a lock box…!

  23. dave

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    is anybody really surprised? they continue to take google employees and push for corners around their garden, so why take such a risk? they do not want to make it easy to leave in any way shape or form, they simply need to present a veneer of portability to silence their millions of drone-like users…

  24. Ummm

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    Search is not a walled garden. The data used to build a search engine is publically available to everyone. Anyone can reconstruct Google’s search index, simply by indexing the web. The same is not true for reconstructing the social graph, because outside of people who use FOAF/XFN declarations, the data is hidden in private databases.

    And unlike data that Google collects from doing business selling ads (private corporate financial data), your social network is YOUR data. This is a consumer issue. I spent personal labor entering all of this contact information and friends into FB or MySpace, and I am unable to *get my data out*. This is a far more annoying garden wall than the fact that I can’t get global information on what everyone is searching or clicking on or buying. I mean, get real.

    The reality is, for you FB fanboys, that the social network should be commodified and open, just like internet protocols. Any site that tried to lock in your contacts list, email, messages, and other social information is doing the devils work.

  25. Foomandoonian

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    Wasn’t the whole Beacon thing a major privacy upset? The whole news feed feature came under fire when they implemented that too, and there are still concerns about the rights that third party apps can have, as the BBC found recently.

    I think it’s pretty clear that whatever Facebook are worried about, our privacy is not top of the list.

  26. Frank Church

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

    Funny stuff. These companies are so full of themselves.

    How about give me a file of my data that I can download to MY pc, like an OPML. I’ll decide where to upload it. No intermediary.

  27. Joke Cricket

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    great..let see how it will change the social networking world.

  28. 113.com

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

    Hasn’t the Web won? So, just connect to the Web? Not? :P

  29. person2

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

    FriendConnect: Yet another failed attempt from goog to snatch valuable data from sites (read Facebook) that have worked very hard to create and maintain HUGE pools of users.
    goog had a chance with social networks - with fvkcing Orkut - but they didn’t properly cultivate it. They, apparently, were pretty busy serving ads instead!
    They should have bought FB at its infancy. Pretty soon they’ll feel as bitter as Excite did when they could have pocketed goog at $1M.

  30. John Lee

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

    Social networking sites should be able to talk to one another. Why facebook is shutting out other networkers? It seems Facebook uses selectivity policy. Burn, Facebook, burn.

  31. AW

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

    I think FB’s major beef is that FaceBook users don’t know *WHAT* developers are using the data that’s being imported into FriendConnect? Is there no authorization mechanism that ‘trickles up’ back to the user so they can control access inside / from FaceBook itself?

    But that’s a completely uneducated guess.

    Side-note: data portability is a good feature, but no one will stop using FaceBook or MySpace because they can export their data to another service. The interface to manage the data is what is important here. People are in live with the *experience* a platform like MySpace or FaceBook gives them when managing and displaying that information to other people.

    Adding the ability to export that data is just a bonus.

    Consider this: assume you could, with the click of a button, import all your blog posts, friend relationship data, etc, into another service. Just one click and you’d be up and running. Would you immediately switch? Probably not. That service would have to go above and beyond what you’re currently using. Therein lies the sell: major competitors have to have major advancements in order to actually ’steal users.’

    Meanwhile, end users will enjoy being able to import their data into smaller web applications to easily aggregate information, remix friend data, and all that good stuff data portability promises.

  32. Haris

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

    Let’s keep our fingers crossed and wait for Google’s response.

  33. Tientien

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    According to FB, some graph data can be stored indefinitely

    http://developers.facebook.com.....p;doc=misc

    From FB’s statement, I think the problem is about FC “redistributes” FB user information not about caching/storing data. We will need to find out how “redistribute” is defined in FB’s TOS.

  34. the art of war

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    “All warfare is based on deception.” - Sun Tzu (500 b.c.)

    This is Microsoft cashing it in on their $240 million investment in Facebook. Hard to imagine that this anti-Google move has not been consulted with General Ballmer.

    “Stab with a borrowed knife.” - Thirty-Six Stratagems

  35. Hunan

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    If signing up on facebook means friend connect can immediately have access to my profile and friend list, it’ll be a disaster to the social network ecosystem…

  36. Frank Church

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    “Facebook has always been serious about its users privacy.”

    Yeah, and Beacon was the perfect privacy protection tool.

  37. Ummm

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    @33 Doesn’t FB’s own connect feature “redistribute” user information? It looks like all friend connect does is show you a list of friends, and their photos. Goog can accomplish this purely by storing the IDs that FB TOS allows.

    I think the reality is, there’s no way in hell that FB is going to allow FC to work with FB, no matter how much FC adheres to TOS, because it is a HUGE threat to them.

    I also predict that FC data portability, if and when it arrives, will be ludicrously tied down by TOS conditions that it is still tied to FB.

    What if Google used Gears to store the information, or browser cookies. Is it really a violation of TOS for your browser to cache stuff for more than 24 hrs?

  38. Kevin B.

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    Prediction: Facebook just wants to delay users from using Google Friend Connect until they capture a majority of users with their own similar product. Once they have effectively captured a substantial base they will then allow Google’s product, but in a position to play catch up. Or am I totally way off base with this?

  39. christopher

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    Two observations:
    (1) Google Friend Connect validates that Google is in a poor position in social networking. In fact, in any business (im, email, etc) that relies on relationships between contacts, Google is woefully behind. Everyone on this blog uses Gmail, but not people in Peoria or Prague. Friend Connect is an attempt to remove the moat around Facebook’s competitive advantage; even if it benefits other non-Google services, it is worth the risk to Google to diffuse the potency of Facebook.

    (2) Privacy is a distraction. Facebook’s real concern is the long-term storage of unique identifiers, like email addresses, that could be used by a third-party to replicate the social graph.

    This really isn’t more complicated than this.

  40. Ian Hendry

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    This is unfortunate. But then the greatest value in Google’s Friend Connect was the inclusion of Facebook. Without them, my interest would switch to Facebook Connect until these guys sort out their differences.

    Best of all would be a third party that I choose holding my identity and contact lists and then I give socnets permission to use that data while I am on their site. I wait to see if anyone starts offering that.

    Ian Hendry
    WeCanDo.BIZ
    http://www.wecando.biz

  41. Anonymous Coward

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    Facebook is a closed piece of crap and very reminiscent of Microsoft. This would actually be a good thing for Facebook as they become the central hub of all this information, but they are too stupid to realize it.

    Seriously, if you idiots can’t figure this out, just let me host an XML file on my server and we’ll call the job done.

  42. Ummm

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:55 pm

    Friend Connect still works with MySpace, so there is still alot of value in it, even without FB, and internationally, FB is still at a disadvantage compared to Google.

    The think is, OpenID, oAuth, OpenSocial, they are all gaining steam, and I think sooner or later, a fully distributed/federated social graph is going to be set up, at which point, FB becomes just a storage provider and compete on QoS and UI only.

    There’s just no way in hell that the future of the internet is that the whole world’s social graph is stored in one companies database. Is that our future 10 years from now? I think not.

  43. Tientien

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    @36

    Yep, and in this case the size matter..

    Ning say “Yes!”, but FB say “No way!”

  44. Anonymous

    May 15th, 2008 at 1:57 pm

    This has nothing to do with users. Facebook has never cared about users.

  45. Facebook

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

    I can’t believe the # of people here who are supporting Facebook’s action. “Protecting our privacy?”

    C’mon! What a bunch of crap. This is the same group that tried to push Beacon down our throats & has repeatedly misled us. 5000 friend limit was to make sure that people only add “real” friends to their account? Yeah, right. Now it’s privacy. Psshhaaah!

    No, I don’t hate Facebook. I like it but this is all about seeing a competitive technology & cutting it off. That’s not wrong for a business to do but don’t put a halo around Facebook for their partisan action.

    What I don’t like is the idea that any single company should become the gatekeeper for millions of users. FC, Goog, MS or anybody.

    Any time they want to, Facebook can squash you guys for stepping out of line…which in one case at least was to develop an app (IM chat) that they wanted to compete against.

  46. cease

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    data is only open to the site that has the most developers using its platform

  47. cease

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    Also from my understanding was google will only show other sites information from an iframe .. you can not export it , or use it in any way.

  48. Ben Watson

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    Saw this coming. It will take a bit to iron out the difference between Connect on user terms and Connect on developer terms…

  49. Brad

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

    Did anyone hear that sound? You know the huge poke in the eye by facebook…so google isn’t as invincible as it first seemed.

  50. Joe Hunkins

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

    Wondering if this is a big mistake by FB. Google’s Friend Connect appears very strong yet simple to install and it will be added to a lot of small websites that won’t build in FB functionality.

    If FB isn’t careful they may wind up - slowly- falling out of the open loop. If they choose that course they’ll get what they deserve.

  51. Nate

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    Hey Facebook, how many times has Google blown the cover of a marriage proposal?

  52. Luca F.

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    right, Facebook cares about privacy… everyone forgot the Facebook beacon already?

    what a joke…

  53. G

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    @Ryan Merket - “Facebook owns the graph… it states in the platform TOS that you are not to STORE this information. And that is exactly what Google was doing with Friend Connect. You are allowed to call for user data from Facebook, but you are not to store it for more than 24 hours.”

    Facebook has no controls in place to make sure app developers have deleted the user data within 24 hours beyond their TOS (aka honor system).

    I came across developers recently who had the info they mined with data they pulled down from FB and other social nets - and trying to peddle their wares calling it analytics -

    Michael - how about you call out Zuckerberg on this one - and see if you get a clear answer on data retention controls. Maybe they have something to share with us - if they do - great -

  54. Jeremy Chone

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    Very similar to the IM interoperability discussions we had a few years back.

  55. Dario Salvelli

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

    Facebook=just little Microsoft, right? :-)

  56. Harry Wang

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:59 pm

    Sounds like eBay protecting its payment division PayPal by limiting what it accepts on eBay for payment of goods. They state that new payment methods (ala Google’s) need to be proven before accepting that form of payment. Seems sneaky but definately a legitimate concern. Although a user’s personal information is owned by that person no matter where they put it…

    Harry “doesn’t understand people’s fascination with Facebook/mySpace/etc.” Wang

  57. Open

    May 15th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    This makes sense and Facebook users should be thrilled by this move. It violates Facebook’s TOS b/c Google is trying to act as a middleman between Facebook and third and fourth parties. Imagine if you were a Facebook user and you changed your privacy settings. With Facebook Connect, those settings would still apply on sites outside Facebook. With Google Friend Connect in the middle, there’s no way for for Facebook to enforce their rules so the identity and privacy you’ve created on Facebook (and that you trust) is at risk. Not so with Facebook’s own product…people are missing that point.

  58. Social Marketing Journal

    May 15th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    Interesting! It’s definitely in Facebooks best interest!

  59. James

    May 15th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    Can we PLEASE stop using the term “Walled Garden” Ugh!

  60. whoopie

    May 15th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    the real joke is on the morons who spend their evenings populating the databases of these sites.

  61. Ben Metcalfe

    May 15th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

    “MySpace and their Data Availability malware product, no doubt.”

    Mike, I was just wondering what you meant by this?

    Thanks, B

  62. T

    May 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

    i think this will be remembered as FB’s biggest mistake.

  63. Max Gladwell

    May 15th, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    This was inevitable. Google was like, “Thanks for aggregating this huge audience. Now we’re going to monetize b/c you can’t.” So Microsoft, er, Facebook said, “No.”

  64. Max Gladwell

    May 15th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    Facebook is like Anakin Skywalker. It’s got the potential for evil and it’s inevitable that it will join the dark side aka Microsoft. Facebook can’t monetize its audience and will never be able to. Social networking is a feature not a product. The only way anyone is getting their money out it is from an acquisition b/c the markets will never justify anything close to their valuation. And only Microsoft will be dumb enough to pay $15 billion for it, though they’ll probably negotiate a much smaller number as developers and others defect for OpenSocial et. al. Meanwhile, MySpace will become a music store and Google/Yahoo will offer social networking as a feature for all of their other products…as well as yours and mine via FriendConnect. Facebook will eventually go the way of Netscape.

  65. Phil

    May 15th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    CALLED IT! http://tinyurl.com/5eg94o

    “[...]not slamming the door on GFC’s scraping of their data would be a fatal mistake for Facebook, LinkedIn and Hi5 [...]

    The result [of google adding OpenSocial apps to Google Friend Connect profile pages, which it could make searchable]? A GFC service where the profile pages are just as interactive and feature-filled as Facebook (i.e. of equal feature-derived value), where you can follow the activity of, and interact with (once they sign up to GFC) all your friends from Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, all the sites you use GFC features on, and all your Gmail contacts - you can ‘friend’ people just by adding them on Gmail and having them reciprocate the connection (hence Gmail becomes the social connector system instead of friending people on Facebook, Hi5 and LinkedIn)

  66. Sven Gali

    May 15th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    Facebook citing privacy concerns ? Now I’ve officially heard everything !

  67. charmgene

    May 15th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

    It is a racing game really, competing for user bace and feature. A big difference from many other web service competition is that this time it will be more concentrated on openness and other function, making grab as many users as possible as fast as possible less important

  68. Jim

    May 15th, 2008 at 6:33 pm

    Of course it seems like this move is in fb’s best interest, at least in the short term. And people saw this coming. So what’s the point of the “we care about privacy” smokescreen. My goodness! Please stop with the condescension Mr. Z. Roll your dice, move your mice… and eventually, take your lumps because they’re coming.

  69. jamie

    May 15th, 2008 at 8:25 pm

    im a hypocrite. i know. whatever. but please, video comments - more video comments. I dont even read anymore. mike, please video comment, especially on big stories, or semi big stories, and interesting stories, and basically, any story you write. dont be shy or self conscious. lets get it going. thanks

  70. Julian Bond

    May 16th, 2008 at 1:01 am

    Why do I get the feeling that everyone is missing the point of Friends Connect? Look at this in the context of Google promoting OpenSocial instead of in the context of Google opening up and providing data portability. OpenSocial is now 4 things.
    1) An API for building widgets
    2) An API for building a container for widgets for big web sites
    3) A REST API for accessing the underlying data and mashing it up
    4) A Javascript wrapper to a hosted container on Google for dropping onto small websites

    Friends Connect is 4) and looks like an entry level container that widens the market for widgets by vastly increasing the number of places your widgets will run. They’ve managed to hide all the complexity of building a container or installing and integrating ShinDig into one line of javascript. Isn’t that an amazingly clever thing that will have at least as much effect as wrapping Google Maps into a snippet of javascript that anyone can use?

    Now the first few widgets available on this hosted platform are from Google and in there is an OpenID Signin, and a Friends viewer. And also in there is a Facebook application. And it’s this Facebook application that is calling Facebook’s bluff.

    Either Facebook’s Connect API let’s you use Facebook’s auth and gives you access to your friends. Or not. And on the surface the answer is “Yes, as long as we like you”. But even this isn’t clear. FB appear to be saying that you can get and store ID numbers, but you can only display your contacts’ data on the fly.

    Which finally brings us down to a privacy debate that is central to the whole data portability drive as it relates to your list of friends. You have a claim on your own profile data. You have a claim on your list of friends. But you *don’t* have a claim on your friend’s profile data. And in that context Facebook looks like it’s trying to do the right thing while also using it as a core part of their business model. Google is also trying to do the right thing from the public access point of view. Actually your friend’s profile data is public information. And public information wants to be free.

  71. ballzack

    May 16th, 2008 at 9:49 pm

    Arrington you stupid twat, why is it wrong for Facebook to simply ban Google because they’re a proven and voracious copycat of others innovation, and a habitual invader of territory created by other company’s hard word.

    Do they really need a reason other than Google sucks, plays dirty, and shouldn’t be allowed to capitalize freely on Facebook’s hard work?

    Of course you can keep pushing Google for your own profit under some half-assed guise, but then you’re a known twat.

  72. Marcel

    May 19th, 2008 at 7:51 am

    Google just wants your login data to get more and more information about you, that’s because they created “Friend Connect”. Don’t be so blind folks.

  73. 2000grad

    May 19th, 2008 at 8:29 am

    It would be nice if a technical analysis will shed light which daat is actually stored when and where. As there are so many JS calls, services, and APIs working together to make this FriendConnect “magic” work, it will be hard to see which data is actually stored, rather than proxied.

    It will give a very interesting insight to further digest this case, but it needs to be done openly and scientifically …

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