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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)

#141

Post by phjohnst »

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.

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

#142

Post by gammarator »

alttab wrote: post #127
portman wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this hinges on the meaning "my data". From your statement, I am guessing you believe that the email addresses of your contacts is your data. So here's the thought experiment: Amy uses GMail and has been corresponding with Bill, who works at Acme. Bill's email address, bill@acme.com, is in Amy's GMail address book. "bill@acme.com" is now a piece of data that is, unquestionably, "owned" by Amy. Amy joins Faceboo…

If Bill puts his new e-mail address on Facebook - he has effectively chosen to give it away. It is now information that all of his friends own. Choose your friends carefully, but choose the data you put on Facebook with even more discretion.

You can make email addresses private on Facebook, so that none of your friends can see them. However, people who already have your email address can use it to find you.

Facebook and Google are using those email addresses for very different purposes: Facebook uses them to identify the profiles of your contacts (the user id is the lasting identity) whereas for Google the email address itself is the relevant identity.

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

#143

Post by orangecat »

portman wrote: post #120
armandososa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Again, this hinges on the meaning "my data". From your statement, I am guessing you believe that the email addresses of your contacts is your data. So here's the thought experiment: Amy uses GMail and has been corresponding with Bill, who works at Acme. Bill's email address, bill@acme.com, is in Amy's GMail address book. "bill@acme.com" is now a piece of data that is, unquestionably, "owned" by Amy. Amy joins Faceboo…

I don't automatically ascribe ownership of "bill@nonprofit.org" to Amy, and it's hard for me to say that she has a right to export that email address out of Facebook.

Define "export". Are you saying that she only has the "right" to use Bill's address within Facebook, so that sending Bill an email with Outlook or GMail is some sort of violation? Or is it only automated mass export that you object to?

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

#144

Post by jfager »

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…

What is Facebook's reasoning, then, for providing an API to download complete friend lists, location, real names, and other data a user didn't wade through privacy settings to lock down?

Handing information to a company with which a user never wanted to have a relationship is bad when it results in spam-filled inboxes, which end users might notice and directly associate with FB's policies. As long as the potential abuse is hidden from the user's view, though, FB wholeheartedly endorses it.

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

#146

Post by seunosewa »

cookiecaper wrote: post #107
gazrogers wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This argument is such an annoying fallacy. People who use Google's services are Google's "customers" in the same way people who watch television are the network's "customers". You may not be the direct source of income, but if they lose all the "non-customers" that are using their services, they're going to lose all of their advertisers, which is their direct source of income. The audience is a crucial component in a…

Hmmm, no. They are a valuable audience, but they are not customers. A customer is someone who pays you for a service. That is the definition.

Why do TV networks continue interrupt their "customers" with ads even though their "customers" don't want ads? That's because their "customers" are not their customers. Their customers are the people paying for those ads and they get to interrupt the "customers" with ads.

It's very important to recognize distinction the between users (aka "customers") and customers if you want your company to survive. "Customers" are the product you sell.

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

#147

Post by patrickaljord »

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…

> Which is precisely Facebook's reasoning for not providing an API to download your friends' email addresses.

So why does it give it to Yahoo mail and Hotmail? Please answer that question.

Relevant link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1889378

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

#148

Post by random42 »

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…

On GMail, my contacts' email addresses are MY data.

I do not agree to it.

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

#149

Post by brianpan »

phjohnst wrote: post #141

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…

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.

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

#150

Post by falcolas »

ewjordan wrote: post #140
kmavm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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. This is a red herring. Facebook lets me choose whether my friends can give away literally anything else that's part of my Facebook presence to third party apps. In fact, there's a strong recommendat…

This makes the assumption you already have a relationship (an account) with Facebook. If you do not have an account with Facebook, you do not have this control. kmavm's post indicates that they do not have, nor do they want to have, such an account.

However, this wish has no effect on Facebook, they will continue to send him invites on the behalf of his friends, who uploaded his email address for him.

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