Facebook is at it again. They’re giving people even more reasons to question their actions.
According to Mashable, Facebook is involved in the kind c-blocking that only jealous friends engage in. And that’s kind of what’s going on.
You see Facebook is trying to block the Facebook Friend Exporter, which is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to export lists of contact info for your Facebook friends for usage in other services.
These claims are coming from the extension programmer himself, Mohamed Mansour.
“Facebook is trying so hard to not allow you to export your friends. They started to remove emails of your friends from your profile by today July 5th 2011. (The extension) will no longer work for many people,” Mansour wrote on the extension’s homepage.
The Facebook Friend Exporter is an uncomplicated tool that lets you transfer phone numbers, e-mails and other data from your Facebook friends. It sends them directly into Google Contacts. The newest version has ceased functioning, however its creator has promised to code and maintain a new version that has a different design.
CNEThas noted that the plugin is most likely against Facebook’s Terms of Service which says: “you will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means without our permission.”
Google as you know is an online mega giant but they are on the outside looking in when it comes to the social networking market. They appear to have taken a different stance than Facebook seeing as how they recently released Takeout. Takeout is a tool that lets you transfer all of your information from the many services Google offers.
And at the moment favorable publicity for Google will help them slowly creep into the market for social media services.
Facebook had no comment on the Friend Exporter plugin situation.
Quick Thoughts
Now that Facebook’s value has supposedly climbed to $100 billion it appears that Facebook doesn’t want anyone to get in the way of their domination of the social media services market. This blocking a plugin move reeks of desperation and it is likely only the beginning. It may be a part of their “rules” but it was probably intended as an anti other social media measure.
Google has just as many resources as Facebook does, maybe even more. Google +will have to be improved first, but Google will probably make a serious run in the social media market soon. What else will Facebook have to block to remain dominant, and will it even hold off an assault by Google?
