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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)

#91

Post by armandososa »

portman wrote: post #75

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 diff…

And juste because I delegated management of contacts to Facebook, are they excused for not letting me get my data out whenever I want to switch contact management services -- for example -- to diaspora?

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

#92

Post by ephoz »

jasonkester wrote: post #83
ephoz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Call it what you like. They're effectively punishing their own users because they don't like a 3rd party service. Those users, however, clearly do like that 3rd party service, and would just like to get on with setting up their account there. Any action at all by Google during that process (other than the expected one) just makes things worse for their users. The adult thing to do, then, is to simply not do anything…

I'm not a big Facebook-fan, so I don't feel punished /at all/ when Google antagonizes the service... More like the opposite actually. That's just my opinion and I won't push for it more than this ; it's okay if we disagree. :)

I guess, if enough users would complain to Google or feel the need to leave their awesome free services for a more Facebook-friendly vendor, good for them. It's not like there's no choice since you can you know... export your data.

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

#93

Post by confuzatron »

kmavm wrote: post #81
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.

> This will slow down my AOL-using friends who gave away all their contact info to Facebook and now I get pelted with spam ... Right; there are practical usability problems with allowing willy-nilly access to your contact list. Some of your contacts have now given your email address to a company with which you never wanted to have a relationship. Which is precisely Facebook's reasoning for not providing an API to dow…

...not to mention, a concrete reminder of the hypocrisy of Facebook's argument.

"Facebook - we protect your contacts, so unscrupulous websites can't spam them like we do."

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

#94

Post by cullenking »

rabidsnail wrote: post #78
hardik wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

Interesting, your list of contact data doesn't actually include any contact information, which is the crux of the argument.

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

#96

Post by stanleydrew »

gizmomagico wrote: post #49

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…

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?

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

#97

Post by seabee »

jasonkester wrote: post #89
dedward wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

With respect, none of our own sites have the heft of Google behind it.

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

#98

Post by nollidge »

luckyland wrote: post #86
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 luck would have it, I picked today to set up a Facebook profile for me girlfriend." I can't be the only one who thinks this is more than a bit weird.

Presumably it was with her permission?

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

#99

Post by cookiecaper »

armandososa wrote: post #91
portman wrote: post #75

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 diff…

And juste because I delegated management of contacts to Facebook, are they excused for not letting me get my data out whenever I want to switch contact management services -- for example -- to diaspora?

Facebook allows you to do this now. Go to Account->Account Settings->Download your Information.

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

#100

Post by stanleydrew »

blahedo wrote: post #90
akozak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 someon…

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.
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