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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)

#151

Post by davorak »

chrischen wrote: post #137
davorak wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is play a greedy game theory strategy by not allowing for a user to download their social graph. Googles response was to use a tit for tat game theory strategy which is effective against the greedy game theory strategy. The greedy game theory strategy in this case ends up being bad for consumers, they can not download their social graph from Facebook. Game theory subjects that when the vast major of agents a…

> Facebook is play a greedy game theory strategy by not allowing for a user to download their social graph. You CAN download your graph data. You can get friends lists with UIDs, and that is theoretically AND practically enough to reconstruct the graph on a third party site. The only difference between getting UIDs and emails is the third party site won't be able to spam all your friends or connect you with your frie…

* If avoiding third party spammers is the reason not to share email address, then it follows that Google should disallow the contacts api. This would be unfortunate

* Google could provide google UIDs instead of emails when downloading contacts. This is theoretically and practically enough to reconstruct the social graph as well. Every company could use their own UID for downloads instead of emails. I do not think it would be practical to reconstruct a social graph across companies however. This is a greedy strategy that would cause inefficiencies and prevent innovation in my opinion.

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

#152

Post by quadhome »

patrickaljord wrote: post #147
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…

> 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

They also give it to me too. I have a Samsung Galaxy S and it, out of the box, syncs with Facebook including e-mail addresses.

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

#153

Post by chrischen »

davorak wrote: post #151
chrischen wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is play a greedy game theory strategy by not allowing for a user to download their social graph. You CAN download your graph data. You can get friends lists with UIDs, and that is theoretically AND practically enough to reconstruct the graph on a third party site. The only difference between getting UIDs and emails is the third party site won't be able to spam all your friends or connect you with your frie…

* If avoiding third party spammers is the reason not to share email address, then it follows that Google should disallow the contacts api. This would be unfortunate * Google could provide google UIDs instead of emails when downloading contacts. This is theoretically and practically enough to reconstruct the social graph as well. Every company could use their own UID for downloads instead of emails. I do not think it…

> * If avoiding third party spammers is the reason not to share email address, then it follows that Google should disallow the contacts api. This would be unfortunate

No that doesn't follow because on Google Contacts I give you my email address. On Facebook I "friend" you, which doesn't really even necessarily mean I'm your friend. I don't want you then to be able to automatically export my email to third parties.

> * Google could provide google UIDs instead of emails when downloading contacts. This is theoretically and practically enough to reconstruct the social graph as well. Every company could use their own UID for downloads instead of emails. I do not think it would be practical to reconstruct a social graph across companies however. This is a greedy strategy that would cause inefficiencies and prevent innovation in my opinion.

Google Contacts is for storing emails you've collected. Facebook is for friending people and I just happened to have to provide my email when signing up... oh just like about every other site on the web.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by niels_olson »

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…

should I, as your physician, release all my contacts data to Facebook? Do you suppose everyone with HIV wants a huge number of people to know that an infectious disease specialist in HIV is one of her contacts?

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

#156

Post by davorak »

chrischen wrote: post #153
davorak wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* If avoiding third party spammers is the reason not to share email address, then it follows that Google should disallow the contacts api. This would be unfortunate * Google could provide google UIDs instead of emails when downloading contacts. This is theoretically and practically enough to reconstruct the social graph as well. Every company could use their own UID for downloads instead of emails. I do not think it…

> * If avoiding third party spammers is the reason not to share email address, then it follows that Google should disallow the contacts api. This would be unfortunate No that doesn't follow because on Google Contacts I give you my email address. On Facebook I "friend" you, which doesn't really even necessarily mean I'm your friend. I don't want you then to be able to automatically export my email to third parties. >…

> No that doesn't follow because on Google Contacts I give you my email address. On Facebook I "friend" you, which doesn't really even necessarily mean I'm your friend. I don't want you then to be able to automatically export my email to third parties.

You can make your email private in Facebook and you do not have to friend people. I would argue for a downloadable list of contacts/email address whose emails you have access to. Facebook already allows hotmail+yahoo access to the email lists, the individual user can not download it directly.

>Google Contacts is for storing emails you've collected. Facebook is for friending people and I just happened to have to provide my email when signing up... oh just like about every other site on the web.

Add decide to let everyone on your friends list have access to your email address, unless you make it private that is. So I would say Facebook is different in this regard then every other site on the web.

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

#158

Post by kmavm »

Here's what Google had to say about social networks and email exporting less than one year ago:

"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."

The occasion was Google disabling exporting of contacts from Orkut to Facebook. I happen to think that both Google then, and Facebook now, are perfectly correct. However, I am curious how those who see Google as clearly in the right, and Facebook as clearly in the wrong, would reconcile Google's statement and actions of a year ago with its statements and actions of the last several days.

Edit: citation http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-...

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

#159

Post by Tyr42 »

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…

>The email address is irrelevant. I disagree. My usage pattern is to use facebook to find a person, then get their email and contact them through email, since I check my email more frequently than I do my facebook. (which is almost never, since I have it send me anything important by email.)

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

#160

Post by rodericksilva »

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…

Ummm...they are my contacts.

"Facebook's reasoning for not providing an API" is because they want to protect me from other Facebook type companies? Really?

...or is it that they don't want us moving our data to another social network?

Let's get real. Facebook can spin it however they want. We all know what's up!

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