Comment by jasonkester
16 years ago
Exactly. One week ago, you could seamlessly import them into Facebook.
- That's a big step back.
- It makes things worse for their users.
- There is no positive effect from the change.
- They did it on purpose.
We're all here because we build web apps for a living. And none of us would ever consider doing something like that with one of our own sites. I have no idea why anybody at Google thought that this was a good idea.
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 are using the greedy strategy that is is impractical for a generous or tit for tact agent to survive. Each company that plays the greedy strategy is a step down the road to the greedy equilibrium. Where no companies offer easy methods to download your social graph or relevant information.
Google played a tit for tat strategy and did the world a service by preventing one step on the road to the greedy equilibrium.
> 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 friends unless you've also opted to use Facebook graph data.
* 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
* Google could provide google UIDs instead of emails when downloading contacts. This is theoretically and practically enough to reconstruct the social graph as well. Every company could use their own UID for downloads instead of emails. I do not think it would be practical to reconstruct a social graph across companies however. This is a greedy strategy that would cause inefficiencies and prevent innovation in my opinion.
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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.
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There is a positive effect from the change: more people will be aware of Facebook's practices with respect to their contact data. I think Google is betting that this positive effect outweighs the negative effects.
Because Gmail can't import Facebook contacts. Google is trying to use it's influence to encourage Facebook to improve it's data portability while still not locking users in.
Seems like a good idea to me.
With respect, none of our own sites have the heft of Google behind it.
But it is true that Facebook doesn't allow exporting user's contact data. So I think Google is making a valid point here. You are still free to do whatever with your own data - unlike Facebook. They are just making sure that you understand the risks in doing so.