14 DAY TRIAL // The contact data spat between Google and Facebook is escalating with both companies taking stabs at each other. For the users, nothing has really changed, but both Google and Facebook are trying to say that they're fighting the good fight and protecting user rights.
Last week, Google updated its API terms of service to effectively block Facebook from importing contact data from Gmail through the API Google provides.
Google said that any service that wants access to that API must also provide a similar means of retrieving contact data. Facebook does not allow users to export contact information, such as email or phone number.
Facebook retaliated, by providing a direct deep link to the contact data export tool Google provides and instructing users to download that data and then upload it to the social network.
Google is disappointed with Facebook
Google hasn't taken any more actions but it has said that it is "disappointed" in Facebook.
"We're disappointed that Facebook didn't invest their time in making it possible for their users to get their contacts out of Facebook. As passionate believers that people should be able to control the data they create, we will continue to allow our users to export their Google contacts," a Google spokesperson said.
What Google is basically saying is that Facebook should just open up access to its data and that Google will continue to allow users to export their data, even if it's for Facebook.
Facebook calls out Google hypocrisy and adds some of its own
Facebook provided its own take on the matter, albeit in a less formal fashion, through a comment on TechCrunch.
In it, Facebook platform engineer Mike Vernal calls out Google for how the company handled a similar matter with Orkut, the Google-owned social network.
About a year ago, Google stopped allowing its users to export their contact data from Orkut, via a dedicated tool, mostly to counter the exodus to Facebook. Orkut was doing very well in India and Brazil and Facebook was aggressively pursuing Google's users.
The Facebook engineer said that Google had a problem with its users exporting contact data from Orkut, yet it asks Facebook to do the same.
Of course, at least part of the reason why Orkut stopped allowing access to the contact data was because Facebook wasn't reciprocating.
However, Vernal says, Facebook has been open about its stance on the matter and says that the social network doesn't believe users 'own' their friends' contact data.
"Our policy has been consistent. The most important principle for Facebook is that every person owns and controls her information. Each person owns her friends list, but not her friends’ information," Vernal said.
"A person has no more right to mass export all of her friends’ private email addresses than she does to mass export all of her friends’ private photo albums," he explained.
That sounds mighty cavalier from Facebook but it's not true. Facebook is happy to hand out contacts data, but only to the ones it suits the company.
Microsoft Hotmail users can import their Facebook contacts and so can Yahoo Mail users. The problem, it seems, is not with third-parties accessing contact data, it's with Google accessing it.
Facebook and Google are gearing up for war while the users are caught in the middle
Facebook and Google have never been too friendly and the social network has never made an effort to hide its ambition of replacing Google as the biggest and most important site on the web.
While both companies are trying to label this as their way of protecting user interests, it's pretty obvious that both are protecting their own interests as well, or even mostly their own interests.
Google would very much like to be able to access Facebook contact data and a lot of the other user data the social network has amassed. And the company still has ambitions of making a play at the social web, despite having failed to make much headway so far, Orkut included.
Facebook has been taking advantage of the APIs other companies provide to scrape and import all sorts of data, including contacts. But even if it's the biggest social network on the planet and is dominating the space, Facebook would rather not risk being taken by surprise by a more nimble opponent or even a giant like Google.