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I was playing around with Google’s new service FriendConnect lately. Basically I wanted to understand which data is exchanged and which connections are made and who runs the code.

From a privacy point of view social networking systems (SNS) are problematic in itself, but if it comes to interconnecting thee with other services this results at least in a “Privacy Policy Chaos” as the screenshot from Facebook the moment you want to use Google’s FriendConnect shows:

Google’s FriendConnects Privacy Policy “clearly” describes which information is shared with the up to five involved parties. Most interestingly are third-party applications, that come neither from Google, Facebook or the website that uses Friendconnect.

Google’s privacy policy says:

“[…] gadgets may collect information from you to provide you with their services“.

“Before your information is shared with a gadget, you will be notified who the developer is, and will be given a choice as to whether you want to use that gadget. Gadgets developed by Google which comply with this Privacy Policy, however, may be enabled automatically.”

So while no third-party apps (”gadgets”) existed last week, it was possible to embed your Facebook friends and relations on a website with Google’s FriendConnect last week (Wednesday, May 14, 2008).

On May 15th Facebook says “[…]we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology[…]” and that they “[…] found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge[…]” and that they terminated it as this “[…]is a violation of our Terms of Service[…]“.

The result:

It would have been nice to know some more details, where and how data has or could have been leaked, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington sees this as an indication that the “Social Network War has begun“. He also cites that Facebook PR has indicated “Sections 2B(4), 2B(5) and 2A9(vi)” of the Terms and Services , but I could not find a Press Release of Facebook later than 6th of May, and no mention of this matter.

So if Facebooks reasons for this ban are indeed privacy related, I am not sure if thoose of use who tested it can be lucky that our data has only leaked to Google ???
On the other hand, one should not submit real data to testdrive services anyhow
I am busy at the moment, but if I find time I will investigate the data flow a bit more and I am sure, this will not be the last time we heard about privacy …

This entry was posted on Montag, Mai 19th, 2008 at 16:13 and is filed under facebook, google, privacy, social networks, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.