14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook pretty much dominates the social networking field around the world. With 300 million users there isn't anything even remotely close to it. Still, there are some countries where the social network hasn't fared so well yet and, notably, Brazil and India are big Orkut strongholds and Facebook is very far behind the Google-owned social network in those countries. This led to some fairly aggressive tactics from Facebook, which created a specialized tool to import your users from Orkut, making the transition much smoother. It didn't take long for Google to strike back though and now two separate ways of importing Orkut contacts have 'mysteriously' stopped working.
Despite Orkut's entrenched position, Facebook has been making some progress especially in India where it is now roughly half the size of Orkut. One reason behind this was the possibility to easily transition between the two using a specially designed tool that has now stopped working. Facebook offered the possibility to search for Orkut friends that might already be on Facebook or to invite them to join with a tool similar to the Gmail, AIM etc., contact import tool available to the rest of the world.
Finally it was also possible to export your Orkut friends list using a standard CSV file that could be requested and downloaded from the Google social network. This feature too has stopped working, according to TechCrunch. It is still possible to request the file but doing so just redirects the user to the main page with no additional information. While there is no way of knowing if Google has made these moves specifically to block users from switching or it's just a coincidence or maybe even a bug, the timing seems to be a little too convenient.
But if the search giant has moved to block these features it spells a pretty bleak future for the Internet company and the “end of innocence” if you will, as it will open the eyes of many to the fact that Google is no longer the startup with a “don't be evil” motto but rather a giant corporation bent on maintaining its privileged position by any means necessary much like how most people see the Microsoft of the nineties.