Famous blogger Robert Scoble recently got banned from Facebook for running a script that exported data from his Facebook account to use in a different social networking service. His account has been reinstated, but this episode raises some key questions about interoperability between social networks.
The script that Scoble ran "screen-scraped" the following bits of data from his network - friends names, email addresses, and birthdays. The question here is - who owns this data? Does it belong to Scoble? Does it belong to Scobles' friends? Or does it belong to Facebook?
Facebook sent the message loud and clear - the data is their's and you can't export it.
But Facebook lets users scrape data from other services and bring it into Facebook. All those email address book imports they have aren't using API's - they're reading your friend's email addresses without the permission of your friends or the service provider (Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo etc). Countless Facebook apps are also reading data from other websites. I wrote one that takes data from LinkedIn for example.
So Facebook only believes in interoperability between web services if it benefits them - if data comes into their platform. But not when data leaves their site. Clif Guy now has serious doubts about using Facebook for the church's internet campus.
While it's easy to call Facebook out on a double standard here, maybe they're doing the right thing. I'm actually on Scoble's Facebook friends list, and I'm not sure how I feel about him exporting my email address and birthday that I trusted Facebook with.
What do you think? Is this a blow to interoperability? Or necessary privacy protection?
- Joe from MyChurch.org
The data most definitely belongs to Facebook, according to their policy:
All content on the Site and available through the Service, including designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the "Site Content"), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved.
But, in my opinion, if Facebook wants to keep their place as one of the top social networking sites, they have to make it share-able. The demand for APIs is growing, people want to see their information widget'ed and repackaged on every social networking site they use, not just one of them. I don't think this is a good move for Facebook...
Posted by: jtr hart | January 04, 2008 at 04:31 AM
the data belongs to the people who gave it to facebook to share with other facebook people. The people who gave their names, emails, birthdays etc gave it to facebook knowing what they were doing. They were not giving it to facebook so others could take it and do as they please.
Under Kim Cameron's famous 'laws of identity' they dicsuss a 'unifying identity metasystem' where the user has control of their information and has the power to share it as they please. The number one law is 'User Control and Consent'. Scoble obvioulsy did not have this from his friends list.
While Facebook itself does not comply with all the laws, I think its obviouos that the Scoble script was a clear violation of them.
IMHO - Facebooks inherent value is based on controlling access to the identities and activities of the people who have subscribed. That's fine by me. Its not Open Social Networking - but then I dont really see anyone who has been able to build a business model on true Open Social Networking yet. For all the hype - the Google led OpenSocial is NOT a pure open API. The OpenID type initiatives dont go past identity management.
So, until true Open Social Networking gets done on a critical mass level - we have to make sure we dont violate the laws of identity - despite how famous a blogger we are! :-)
Posted by: myles | January 06, 2008 at 06:51 PM
Along these lines, DataPortability.org just announced yesterday a deal with Plaxo, Facebook and Google to do this very thing .... share their data between platforms!
Check it out at http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/01/08/plaxo-facebook-and-google-go-open-by-joining-dataportability/
Posted by: Paul Kuzma | January 09, 2008 at 08:37 AM
Paul, thanks for bringing that unexpected development up. This could be a watershed moment for social networking. I'm siding with VentureBeat's opinion though for now that ideal interoperability is far less than half-full:
http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/08/facebook-google-plaxo-join-data-portability-lots-of-hype-even-more-work-to-do/
All eyes will be on Facebook to see what they'll bring to the table. I'm anxiously waiting myself...
What would full data portability look like for the members of your church? What would be an ideal scenario?
Posted by: Joe Suh | January 09, 2008 at 11:55 AM