Why Are Google And Facebook Fighting To Control Our Data?

Recently Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked about what Google would do if Facebook would not permit the search company to access its data

. He swiftly responded by saying The best thing that would happen is for Facebook to open up its data. Failing that, there are other ways to get that information. He didnt expand on that comment but at the end of last week Google made a change to its Gmail terms and conditions, banning companies from extracting Gmail user data unless they, in return, made their own data available to Google.

If so, it hasnt been entirely successful. For some time Facebook has allowed users to import their Gmail contacts and find those people on Facebook. Now that Google has prevented them from doing that, theyve found a workaround asking users to download their contacts from Gmail themselves and then upload them to Facebook. Google responded by saying Were disappointed that Facebook didnt invest their time in making it possible for their users to get their contacts out of Facebook. As passionate believers that people should be able to control the data they create, we will continue to allow our users to export their Google contacts.

That prompted a Facebook engineer, Mike Vernal, to respond with a strongly-worded comment pointing out that Google has previously blocked users of Orkut, the social network it owns, from exporting their contacts to Facebook. He wrote:Openness doesnt mean being open when its convenient for you. We strongly hope that Google turns back on their API and doesnt come up with yet another excuse to prevent their users from leaving Google products to use ones they like better instead.In truth, both companies can be criticised for the way they have handled user data in the past and both companies can claim to be acting in the best interests of their users this time. Its far from a clear-cut situation. This in my view illustrate that the battle to control our data is not just being fought between us and the technology companies we use, but also between those companies themselves. Visit My Website : http://www.wanarua.com

by: contador wanarua

POST COMMENT

Aarkstore Enterprise Google In The Cloud How to get on the top on Google SEO Tips and tricks Measures Needed to Optimize Your Google Places 4 Kinds of Activity That Google Rewards Google Instant Preview Design Tips Houston, SEO, Google, Fisrt, Page, Ranking, Getting MV4MEN Blog - Does Google's punishment fit the crime? 100% Free Shipping Katekyo Hitman Reborn Chrome Dokuro Cosplay Costume,40% Off Facebook Social Ads Versus Google AdWords Dentists In Herndon Va Directory With Google Search You Can Be Your Own Data Intelligence Service With Google Docs Survey Building Feature How To Raise Your Google Pagerank And Lower Your Alexa Rating In A Few Easy Steps. How to Make a good Linkwheel and It's Importance in Google Rankings