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Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

zdnet.com

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Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#51

Post by brendano »

There is a legitimate question here -- do you own the information about your friends, or do your friends? Many things on Facebook are a shared quasi-public, quasi-private space where the ownership isn't clear, and don't fit into our usual mental model of "I own my own data!"

This example is even clearer. The app lets you export your friends' names and contact information. This isn't your information, it's your friends'. What if one of them wanted to take their phone number off the site? What if one of them wanted to hide their information from you specifically? If you've downloaded it already you're depriving them of the right to control their own data.

Clearly social networks should be required to offer some sort of friend list information for export. Maybe a bare list of user ID's is all that should be required -- the information about who your friends are seems legitimately like it's yours. Joining it against names and contact information is the potentially privacy-invasive step; that could be done online, under control of your friends, not you.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#52

Post by sorbus »

brendano wrote: post #51

There is a legitimate question here -- do you own the information about your friends, or do your friends? Many things on Facebook are a shared quasi-public, quasi-private space where the ownership isn't clear, and don't fit into our usual mental model of "I own my own data!" This example is even clearer. The app lets you export your friends' names and contact information. This isn't your information, it's your friend…

> What if one of them wanted to take their phone number off the site? What if one of them wanted to hide their information from you specifically? If you've downloaded it already you're depriving them of the right to control their own data.

Consider how ridiculous that would sound if you asked "What if one of your friends had emailed you their phone number and wanted to remove your access to it (or had emailed you and wanted to remove your knowledge of their email address)? What if they gave you information in person and now want to hide it from you specifically?"

That's the mental model I, personally, use for social networks: any information you choose to publish on it is fair game for whatever your friends want to do with it (and they can do whatever they want with any information I publish on it). Anyone who does not want to be contacted (or have their contact information exported into other formats - such as the linking of name and email address which is required to email) should not make it available - there's no reason to publish an email if you don't want to be emailed, and no reason to publish a phone number if you don't want to be called.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#53

Post by sandipc »

brendano wrote: post #51

There is a legitimate question here -- do you own the information about your friends, or do your friends? Many things on Facebook are a shared quasi-public, quasi-private space where the ownership isn't clear, and don't fit into our usual mental model of "I own my own data!" This example is even clearer. The app lets you export your friends' names and contact information. This isn't your information, it's your friend…

If I may go back a few years...

If my number is listed in the 1995 local big yellow phonebook but then I choose to have it unlisted in the 1996 phonebook, is it wrong for someone with the older phonebook to have my phone number?

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#54

Post by Locke1689 »

Shenglong wrote: post #38

I think this is just pissing users off. I want to import my contacts into Google+, but I currently have no desire to leave Facebook. After seeing this, that changes a bit.

FYI, if you go into Google+ and go to your account settings, you'll see a link called "Data Liberation." This link will allow you to download all of your data -- contacts, posts, pictures; everything -- and take it wherever you like. The Data Liberation Front is Google's project to make sure that you can withdraw your data from all Google sites as you please.

Disclaimer: I'm a Google intern this summer.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#55

Post by Shenglong »

Locke1689 wrote: post #54
Shenglong wrote: post #38

I think this is just pissing users off. I want to import my contacts into Google+, but I currently have no desire to leave Facebook. After seeing this, that changes a bit.

FYI, if you go into Google+ and go to your account settings, you'll see a link called "Data Liberation." This link will allow you to download all of your data -- contacts, posts, pictures; everything -- and take it wherever you like. The Data Liberation Front is Google's project to make sure that you can withdraw your data from all Google sites as you please. Disclaimer: I'm a Google intern this summer.

I saw that option - it's nice. I just wish I could liberate my gmail data too. Almost half a million emails, and I'd like to have a gzip of them in case something happened.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#56

Post by mryan »

Shenglong wrote: post #55
Locke1689 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, if you go into Google+ and go to your account settings, you'll see a link called "Data Liberation." This link will allow you to download all of your data -- contacts, posts, pictures; everything -- and take it wherever you like. The Data Liberation Front is Google's project to make sure that you can withdraw your data from all Google sites as you please. Disclaimer: I'm a Google intern this summer.

I saw that option - it's nice. I just wish I could liberate my gmail data too. Almost half a million emails, and I'd like to have a gzip of them in case something happened.

On Linux? This seems pretty easy to do, although I have not tried yet.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/backup-gmail-in-linux-with-get...

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#57

Post by mapgrep »

Locke1689 wrote: post #54
Shenglong wrote: post #38

I think this is just pissing users off. I want to import my contacts into Google+, but I currently have no desire to leave Facebook. After seeing this, that changes a bit.

FYI, if you go into Google+ and go to your account settings, you'll see a link called "Data Liberation." This link will allow you to download all of your data -- contacts, posts, pictures; everything -- and take it wherever you like. The Data Liberation Front is Google's project to make sure that you can withdraw your data from all Google sites as you please. Disclaimer: I'm a Google intern this summer.

Does the export include email addresses? Facebook offers an "export" too, but you just end up with HTML pages with your friends' names and no contact info.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#58

Post by Shenglong »

mryan wrote: post #56
Shenglong wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that option - it's nice. I just wish I could liberate my gmail data too. Almost half a million emails, and I'd like to have a gzip of them in case something happened.

On Linux? This seems pretty easy to do, although I have not tried yet. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/backup-gmail-in-linux-with-get...

I know, I just think Gmail should have a built in interface. It'd also be nice to be able to only download emails with a certain label, in a specific period of time, etc.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#59

Post by mapgrep »

mryan wrote: post #56
Shenglong wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that option - it's nice. I just wish I could liberate my gmail data too. Almost half a million emails, and I'd like to have a gzip of them in case something happened.

On Linux? This seems pretty easy to do, although I have not tried yet. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/backup-gmail-in-linux-with-get...

I use getmail to backup my Gmail (per that link), but there is still data loss. You can either use POP and lose your labels or use IMAP and lose your unread status (IMAP mode marks everything as read - someone patched getmail to offer a "leave unread" option but the maintainer refuses to accept any such patches).

Also, Google throttles your downloads - on POP this takes the form of returning just a few emails per download. It took me about three months to have a full backup at home, and I'm a paying customer (~30gb of mail on Apps Premier or whatever they're calling it today).

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