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Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

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Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#21

Post by icebraining »

kmavm wrote: post #11

Here's what Google had to say about the exact same product decision in their social network Orkut in 2009: "Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a user friends someone they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click." http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorra…

They should implement a data download request. "X is asking to download the personal information and posts your shared with him, do you want to allow it? Yes/No".

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#22

Post by ja2ke »

kmavm wrote: post #17
Daniel14 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the same quote: "Google Contacts syncs with Orkut, so users can export their Orkut friends’ email addresses from Google Contacts", so it's technically wrong that Google didn't let you export your friend's mail addresses anymore. They just made it more difficult, ie didn't bundle it with the Orkut csv file people used to import everything into facebook. And I think that's actually Google's point: They feel Facebo…

> it's only your friends that have access to it. ...and whatever apps your friends have authorized.

Why would a clean, user focused "export my info" tool also be exposed to apps? I can't imagine a situation where those two features would be intrinsically tied. This is about an end-user-side button which dumps your friend network 'address book' into a simple machine readable format and downloads it to the users local drive. Implying such a feature would/could, accidentally/maliciously cause a user's contacts to flood out uncontrollably to 3rd party app developers reads like FUD.

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#23

Post by ja2ke »

flocial wrote: post #2

In other news Mark Zuckerberg calls out Google for lack of search engine transparency. Honestly, I think the lack of social graph portability on Facebook is a really good thing. Look how they messed up the Wall with these so-called social games. The day Zynga gets my social graph is the day I leave. Google's posturing is really getting old. Maybe I'd take them more seriously if they didn't have their finger in every…

Would a "don't allow others to export my information" feature, maybe with some granularity, help with this? So if your friend dumped their info to leave, or sent it directly to another app or service, you wouldn't be included* since you opted out of allowing others to export you?

* or, with some granularity and tuning controls, maybe for example just your name and it's presence in photo tags from your friends library, and nothing else, would be included.

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#24

Post by 18pfsmt »

thurn wrote: post #18

Google+ doesn't export contact data either! It only produces contact information for people already in your Google address book. How has Google earned this "Holier than thou" attitude?

What you are claiming simply doesn't seem correct to me. I am too privacy conscious to simply use a tool so early in its release, but my understanding is that most data can be extracted from Google using google.com/takeout. I know I can export my Google Contacts quite easily, and I have done that before in order to sync with my home phone (i.e. ipod touch).

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#25

Post by 18pfsmt »

thristian wrote: post #9
nhaehnle wrote: post #7

One way to look at the current situation in social networks is that it is a rehash of the pre-Internet situation. Pre-Internet, some institutions already had internal networks with mail systems and so forth, but each network was an isolated island. The internet enabled people in different networks to talk with each other. The social networks of today are isolated islands, and I would love to see a "social internet",…

The OStatus[1] specification enables distributed operation of Twitter-like interactions (specifically, short status messages, @replies and direct messages), so there's that. The people who worked on that are working on a new revision[2] that presumably will try to address the use-cases of sites like Google+. [1]: http://ostatus.org/about [2]: https://plus.google.com/104323674441008487802/posts/it3iBLUj...

This is interesting and good info. I am of the mind that social networks that are privy to personal info should not be run by for-profit companies unless they are being paid directly by the users, not adverts. I'm not sure how widespread this belief is, but it is my belief, and I hope we can move things in that way.

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#26

Post by naner »

kmavm wrote: post #11

Here's what Google had to say about the exact same product decision in their social network Orkut in 2009: "Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a user friends someone they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click." http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorra…

I agree with the notion that exporting a whole list of contacts and importing them into a different social network is bad (and annoying), but I don't think FB should prevent me from exporting my contact list. On the contrary, I think social networks should disallow importing a whole list of contacts.

Exporting is useful for a number of reasons (import into Thunderbird, for backup purposes, etc). Some people might abuse the feature but that will help bring people's expectations of digital privacy closer to reality.

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#27

Post by Xuzz »

naner wrote: post #26
kmavm wrote: post #11

Here's what Google had to say about the exact same product decision in their social network Orkut in 2009: "Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a user friends someone they don’t then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click." http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorra…

I agree with the notion that exporting a whole list of contacts and importing them into a different social network is bad (and annoying), but I don't think FB should prevent me from exporting my contact list. On the contrary, I think social networks should disallow importing a whole list of contacts. Exporting is useful for a number of reasons (import into Thunderbird, for backup purposes, etc). Some people might abu…

You maintain that Gmail contact list. Your friends maintain their Facebook profiles. That's the difference.

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#28

Post by naner »

Xuzz wrote: post #27
naner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the notion that exporting a whole list of contacts and importing them into a different social network is bad (and annoying), but I don't think FB should prevent me from exporting my contact list. On the contrary, I think social networks should disallow importing a whole list of contacts. Exporting is useful for a number of reasons (import into Thunderbird, for backup purposes, etc). Some people might abu…

You maintain that Gmail contact list. Your friends maintain their Facebook profiles. That's the difference.

Sorry, I rewrote my post.

For the record, I initially asked if it was ok for Gmail to allow me to export my contact list (using OP's reasoning). And I don't maintain my Gmail contact list. People email me and their contact info gets saved by Gmail.

Re: Larry Page Calls Out Facebook For Lack Of Social Data Portability

#29

Post by justinschuh »

thurn wrote: post #18

Google+ doesn't export contact data either! It only produces contact information for people already in your Google address book. How has Google earned this "Holier than thou" attitude?

Google+ doesn't export email addresses that you don't already have access to--for example, if someone has you in a circle but you've never exchanged an email. That makes sense, because the export shouldn't violate the privacy restrictions enforced by the normal UI.

However, in you can't export an email address already connected to a profile (either through contacts import or because the user shares it via privacy settings). So, the point is that Facebook is impeding export in a way that does nothing to improve a user's privacy but does create obstacles to moving your information elsewhere.

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