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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)

#161

Post by rodericksilva »

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…

So what if I wanted to use my Facebook contacts to see how many of my Facebook friends were on Buzz or Twitter?

Facebook wants us to use our Gmail username and password to import contacts from those services directly into their network but they don't want us importing our contacts into Twitter?

I don't get how that is not a greedy thing.

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

#162

Post by GrandMasterBirt »

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.

1000% eh? So you hire 9 slaves to approve alongside you? Interesting. Are they on your contacts? Hmmmm?

Much much much more wiery when people give out their email password to any other service period. Plus why would you care if you can't get the info out of facebook? You already have it in gmail. I dunno, I feel like I dodged so many bullets by not using facebook.

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

#164

Post by gizmomagico »

stanleydrew wrote: post #96
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?

Google has been giving up people's contact information (without their consent) from GMail to Facebook for a long time.

It's safe to assume Google has been getting something in return all along, but now something's changed, and they decided to make a big fuss about the whole thing.

Then they say things like:

a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends.

Locking up? --> "Open" vs "Closed" again.

So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out.

I bet that most people would think of "getting something out" as removing it. They make it sound like you should be able to remove "your data" from Facebook..

you are always free to download your contacts using the export feature in Google Contacts

.. As if Google letting you export things from various Google services amounted to the same thing, which it doesn't. No matter how much you export your data, Google will still be keeping a copy of everything, so talking about "getting it out" is disingenuous.

Because, after all, you should have control over your data.

Why did Google give "my data" to Facebook without asking me, or even notifying me about it then? After several years of handing people's contact information over to FB behind the scenes, why is it suddenly important that I have control over my data? Disingenuous.

But this is all just a PR-stunt and an attack against Facebook combined. Open vs Closed again, and Google parading around as a champion of Openness and your rights, when in the end, both parties are just corporations and only interested in making money off of you and "your" data.

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

#165

Post by chrischen »

rodericksilva wrote: post #161
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…

So what if I wanted to use my Facebook contacts to see how many of my Facebook friends were on Buzz or Twitter? Facebook wants us to use our Gmail username and password to import contacts from those services directly into their network but they don't want us importing our contacts into Twitter? I don't get how that is not a greedy thing.

Well if your friends imported their Facebook data into Buzz or Twitter then it should be possible.

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

#166

Post by chrischen »

davorak wrote: post #156
chrischen wrote: post #153

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 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…

> 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.

I friend people based on the assumption that they can't export my email to arbitrary third parties (which is true at the moment). If this is no longer true I would delete all my friends, sue facebook, and meet friends in person to socialize. But the other thing you mention is reasonable. But it would have to be opt-in since by default I don't think people would want this. Also since originally signing up this feature was not implied.

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

#167

Post by lwhi »

gazrogers wrote: post #68
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…

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

We - the customers - pay google with our attention. The transaction isn't as cut and dried as it is when money changes hands, and we don't have so much recourse to complain (and get an adequate response) but I do think we are definitely customers.

Nothing is truly 'free'.

Negation of this fact, provides companies who offer their services for 'free' with an excuse to treat their users badly.

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

#168

Post by nailer »

subbu wrote: post #87
nkassis wrote: post #25

I'm just waiting for the backroom deal between the two that will allow two way sharing between only them.

Not likely especially when the big MS daddy is looking around!

huh? Microsoft make windows and office, and don't have a dominant web presence.

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

#169

Post by subbu »

nailer wrote: post #168
subbu wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not likely especially when the big MS daddy is looking around!

huh? Microsoft make windows and office, and don't have a dominant web presence.

Microsoft is an investor in Facebook. So its not likely that a backroom deal between Google and Facebook will happen.

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

#170

Post by axavier »

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.

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

Relevant quote from Google:

"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"

Lets recap:

1. Users use data exporter en masse to abandon Orkut.

2. Google breaks the exporter. Supposedly a bug, coincidentally when people are actually now using it.

3. Google changes the exporter so emails are no longer included.

4. Google says social networks shouldn't be expected to allow mass email exportation.

5. 12 months pass

6. Google breaks the gmail exporter to Facebook. Social networks apparently are now expected export all e-mails. Press eats it up.

Look, I'm not arguing that email exporting should or shouldn't be allowed. I don't really want my friends giving my email to Farmville so they get a golden banana, but it's not the end of the world. What I don't get though, is people talking about this like Google is some godly force of good, championing the rights of users against the evil Facebook.

Please. Google is getting scared, and made a calculated (albeit hypocritical) business decision to try and slow down Facebook's growth. The rest of this is BS PR spin and Techcrunch sensationalism to fan the drama fires.

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