Facebook lands blow to Google Friend Connect

by Andrew McCormick, Media Week 16-May-08, 14:14

LONDON - Google's plan to become a leading player in social networking suffered a blow today, as Facebook blocked its users from using Google Friend Connect.

Websites signing up to Google Friend Connect can offer users access to social network features such as profiles and message boards. The feature also enables users to access personal profiles they have built on other social networks.

Facebook said that it has problems with Google's privacy policy. Google has since said that users are in control of their data at all times.

Charlie Cheever, a developer at Facebook, wrote on Facebook's blog: "Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we've had a chance to evaluate the technology. We've found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users' knowledge, which doesn't respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our terms of service."

As a result, Facebook has effectively withdrawn from Friend Connect, by denying Google access to its users' data.

Facebook, MySpace and Google have all launched initiatives aimed at easing access to multiple social networks. The issue highlights the importance of protecting personal information when building commercial opportunities around social networks.

Facebook faced controversy when it launched Beacon, an ad platform that caused uproar among Facebook users, unhappy with the social network's use of data.