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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

#61

Post by sek »

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…

Why did Facebook import e-mails over years and still hold them in their databases? There is no way to remove them and when someone with this address enters Facebook he gets recommendations for Friends.

Do they own this data?

Think about this before you blame people who just try to find a way to reconnect with their friends (who are ok with being your friend on FB) on another Platform.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#62

Post by bmelton »

mapgrep wrote: post #57
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.

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.

I just downloaded it, because I didn't know the answer. It's better than that, actually -- you get full vCard collections of all your contact groups, with a fully populated vCard for each contact.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#63

Post by Silhouette »

msy wrote: post #5
tomelders wrote: post #2

Any legal eagles here on HN care to comment on the legality of this? I would have hoped that data protection laws (I'm in the UK) would have protected this, since it provides me with access to my own data.

I doubt there's a legal issue here, just grubby, low-brow behaviour, which is basically par for the course for Facebook.

I think tomelders is talking about the legality of the plug-in, which collects personal data and provides it to another party. (Edit: Actually, on rereading, maybe he really was talking about a right of access to the Facebook data. The following stands either way.)

I'm not a lawyer, but I do spend a significant amount of time working with data protection and privacy issues in the UK. With my current understanding, I don't see how that could even possibly be permitted under the data protection and privacy laws here without the consent of those whose data you're transferring to Google+.

I suspect Google could get into trouble with the ICO (what, again?) if they are behind the plug-in, but if I were them, I'd be more worried about the European level privacy hawks. Here in the UK we're relatively forgiving, but Europe can and does slap down megacorps with significant penalties from time to time.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#64

Post by sek »

jkincaid wrote: post #49
phereford wrote: post #39

I am going to start off by saying I haven't read the article. With that said, didn't Google deny Facebook from scraping contacts off of gmail a year (or two) ago? I forget the exact method they implemented, but I know it stunted Facebook's ability to scrape the emails for a good while. How is this any different?

Google allowed Facebook to import your Google Contacts via an API for years. Last fall it blocked Facebook's access to that API, saying that they'll restore it when Facebook offers reciprocity (i.e. if Facebook begins to allow users to export their FB contacts using a similar API, then Google will reactivate Facebook's access to the Google Contacts API). Facebook's argument has always been that it doesn't think you h…

This does expose the bigotry of Facebook so much.

On the other hand the valuation is merely based on the fact that they are the "one and only social network". They are dependent on this monopolistic behavior or they are screwed and can forget an IPO.

Zuckerberg himself with this "i just try to connect people for the rest of my life" seems to be under this bias. He is no Steve Jobs who was able under almost any condition to create value.

This social network stuff has the biggest lock-in of all internet services, but he can't prevent people from moving by force.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#65

Post by Silhouette »

chc wrote: post #24
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that it is your data. If I befriend you on Facebook I am not giving you permission to bulk import my information into any old website which may or may not treat that information respectfully. People are focused on Google but forget that if they enabled this your information could be bulk imported into schemy websites who only want the data to spam. Even if those applications get banned it's too late if you…

Don't fool yourself. If they're not that trustworthy, you shouldn't be friending them, because preventing known Chrome extensions from doing this does not prevent the other 5000 ways (including a pen and paper) of doing the same thing.

I would be offended if my friends started giving out my personal details to random businesses using a pen and paper, too.

I don't personally use Facebook, having abandoned it almost immediately precisely because my friends were collectively volunteering all kinds of information that I considered private. Today, my friends know this is my view and it's not a problem, nor am I the only one of my group who takes this view. Obviously it took a while before my views became known, though.

In any case, this whole black-and-white idea that if you volunteer any personal information to friends on one service with privacy controls you might trust then that information is fair game for anyone to give to anyone else is just silly. If it weren't, Facebook themselves wouldn't have been pressured repeatedly into creating and maintaining all those privacy controls even though it's not really in their interests to do so and they've tried to reduce them again and failed on several occasions.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#66

Post by Silhouette »

sandipc wrote: post #53
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?

No, but it is wrong for them to start plugging that number into some database of telesales people they feel like working with.

(Edit: To those downvoting, do you not like the analogy, or do you not agree with the ethical principle?)

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#67

Post by Daniel14 »

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…

I don't think that's really a legitimate question.

If you tell a friend e.g. your email address, you willingly give up the control you had over that piece of information, and accept that he now knows your email address. What you're expecting is that you can control when your friend forgets the information you voluntarily gave him. I doubt that's a legitimate expectation.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#68

Post by Locke1689 »

mapgrep wrote: post #59
mryan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dow…

If this "read mail" thing is a problem for you why don't you just patch the software? Yes, a .tar.bz dl link in GMail would probably be nice, but sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. If the maintainer doesn't want the patch, patch it yourself and host it on Github/Bitbucket/Google Code/etc.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#69

Post by stitchy »

I think I used this extension months ago before it got blocked. Worked pretty well, but I found that it didn't get all the information that I was hoping for. Namely the e-mail address was missing for all of my contacts. Got their bio info. and other stuff though.

Re: Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends

#70

Post by rwolf »

Silhouette wrote: post #66
sandipc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but it is wrong for them to start plugging that number into some database of telesales people they feel like working with. (Edit: To those downvoting, do you not like the analogy, or do you not agree with the ethical principle?)

I believe sorbus's comment covers it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2730277
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