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

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

#71

Post by hardik »

jasonkester wrote: post #63

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…

As opposed to Facebook simply not allowing you to export your contacts?

What if you would have picked today (or rather any other day) to set up a new gmail account for your girlfriend and needed her facebook contacts?

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

#72

Post by jasonkester »

ck2 wrote: post #48

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.

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.

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

#73

Post by jasonkester »

moultano wrote: post #69
jasonkester wrote: post #63

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…

Can't you just click "proceed" when you get to this page?

You don't get that page. You just get their standard oauth page, followed by an empty list when you get back to Facebook.

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

#74

Post by ephoz »

jasonkester wrote: post #63

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…

Is Google really behaving like a child, or warning its users against childish actions? Facebook is not a dreamworld, so I'm quite happy when some people are reminded that they're submitting their friends addresses to a service that will never forget about them.

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

#75

Post by portman »

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.

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

#76

Post by jasonkester »

gazrogers wrote: post #68
jasonkester wrote: post #63

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…

Customers? How much money have you paid Google for services this year?

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.

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

#77

Post by riffraff »

fragmede wrote: post #57
nkassis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 competiti…

How much 'real-er' does FB messaging need to get? I ask because FB messaging, like Gmail, is already available on the two platforms that matter today - web browsers and smartphones. Yeah, you need a FB account to use FB messaging, but if you don't have Facebook, you're not a real person, at least according to Quora (along with any other FB-connect only site). (Quora has since backpedaled on that stance.) The obvious…

well, they could add categorization/labels for one.

Or more concretly: the ability to receive messages from people you don't already have as contacts.

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

#78

Post by rabidsnail »

hardik wrote: post #71
jasonkester wrote: post #63

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…

As opposed to Facebook simply not allowing you to export your contacts? What if you would have picked today (or rather any other day) to set up a new gmail account for your girlfriend and needed her facebook contacts?

You can get the contacts for a facebook user through the graph api (including email, if you request the appropriate permission). This is what you get a list of when you request someone's friend list: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user .

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

#79

Post by stanleydrew »

jasonkester wrote: post #76
gazrogers wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers? How much money have you paid Google for services this year?

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.

Cut the snark. We all know you haven't paid a few grand for gmail this year.

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

#80

Post by patio11 »

jrockway wrote: post #61
nkassis wrote: post #25

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

But Google lets you export your data. So if Facebook exports to Google, then your data can go anywhere, and we've won!

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.
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