14 DAY TRIAL // Great news, Facebook has finally relented and is enabling users to download contact data so they can import them into other websites, Google+ perhaps. Google and Facebook have been battling over this for a lot of time and it seems like a great victory for Google. Except it's not.
What Facebook has done is enable users to download contact data, including emails, of friends that specifically opt into enabling their friends to download their contact data.
Which no one will ever do because, for one, no one will know about it since it's buried very deep in the Accounts Settings page, and second, no one will want to enable because they'd feel like they're giving away their info.
But this single change, that means nothing in the real world, will enable Facebook to say that it does enable users to take their data with them, negating Google's primary argument against it. Problem Solved.
Here's how it works. Facebook unveiled a feature last fall that enabled users to download their data from the site. This had been long requested. With the tool, users are able to get their posts, photos and so on as well as a list of (the name of their) friends.
This made the feature useless for importing your data into other sites. Now, Facebook has made a small adjustment, emails can be included, but only for users that have opted to enable friends to do this.
And here's how 'easy' it is to do that. You have to go to the Accounts Settings page. The option is on this page, but you won't see it at first. You have to click on "Edit" next to the Email data and only then you'll see the "Allow friends to include my email address in Download Your Information," unchecked by default. Oh, and Facebook asks for your password to save any changes in this section, for good measure.