If you hadn’t yet heard, there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle this past week over your data by two Internet giants – Facebook and Google, reports ReadWriteWeb. It started when Google began blocking other services from importing its data without reciprocity, a move aimed directly at Facebook. Since then, the ball has been hit back and forth, with Facebook making an end-run around Google and deep-linking directly to a contact exporter on Google. Now, Google has retaliated by asking any user that gets that far if you are “super sure you want to import your contact information for your friends into a service that won’t let you get it out?” Take a look at Google’s rather hilarious response after the jump. This is the page that Facebook users now see when they try to export their Google data to find their friends on Facebook. “You have been directed to this page from a site that doesn’t allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends,” warns Google. “So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out.” The page even offers users the ability to “register a complaint”, although it’s unclear where this complaint will end up…
…Read MorePodcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Facebook declares ‘Zero Tolerance’ for data brokers
On Facebook’s Developers blog, the world’s largest social networking company declared “zero tolerance” for data brokers, after a recent Wall St. Journal investigation revealed that some Facebook application developers have been selling Facebook users’ information to data brokering firms, reports ReadWriteWeb. Facebook has responded to this news by banning the developers engaging in this practice from the site for a period of six months. To regain entry, the companies will have to submit their data practices for an audit to ensure compliance or the ban will remain in effect. WSJ’s investigation, part of a series called “What They Know,” has been revealing (in a sometimes overly paranoid fashion) the ins and outs of how your personal information is being gathered by data brokers, bought and sold, and then used for targeting advertising purposes. In the case of Facebook, WSJ cautioned that “many of the most popular applications… have been transmitting identifying information – in effect, providing access to people’s names and, in some cases, their friends’ names – to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies.” The paper claimed that the issue affected tens of millions of Facebook app users…
…Read More