Facebook blocks Google Friend Connect

Violation of Terms of Service

16 May 2008 9:58 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Although Facebook says that MySpace’s Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, and Facebook Connect "can be part of a great movement in the industry to give users a better and safer experience online" the social networking site has moved decisively to block Google's new service over privacy concerns.

Charlie Cheever of the Facebook developers team has written a blog post explaining Google's just launched Friend Connect, that lets users port personal info across sites, does not comply with Facebook's Terms of Service.

Cheever states: "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".

"Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance."

"We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose."