Mountain View, California — For years, Facebook users have enjoyed searching and inviting Google contacts to join their social network through a single mouse-click. But now, global search engine behemoth Google Inc. is launching a salvo against Facebook Inc., saying it will no longer allow the social network to grab information about Google users’ social and professional contacts in Gmail, Google’s email service, highlighting an intensifying rivalry between the two Internet giants.
Google earlier permitted its users to transfer data, including their contacts, to other websites. But now, new Facebook users could not be able to find out whether their contacts on Gmail also had Facebook accounts, as the search titan no longer allows other services to automatically import its users’ email contact data for their own purposes, unless the information flows both ways, Google said in an e-mailed statement today. Brandee Barker, a spokeswoman for closely held Facebook, did not respond immediately to an e- mail message.
The Calif.-based company has alleged Facebook in particular of sucking up Google contact data, without permitting for the automatic import and export of Facebook users’ information.
“It is important that when we automate the exchange of contacts to another service, users have some certainty that the new service meets a baseline standard of data portability,” Google said in the statement. “We hope that reciprocity will be an important step towards creating a world of true data liberation.”
Facebook, which touts more than 500 million users, depends on email services such as Google’s Gmail to help new users find friends already on the network. When a person joins, they are asked to import their Gmail contact list into the social network service. But unlike Google, Facebook does not allow its users to export their contacts data to other websites.
Back in September, Google CEO Eric Schmidt speculated about this during an appearance at a Google Zeitgeist conference, said it hoped to get access to Facebook users’ contact lists so that people can expand their social network on Google, though he added there were alternatives if Facebook did not comply. And in response, last night Google made a subtle change to the Terms of Service in its Google Contacts API, as first reported by TechCrunch.
“We have decided to change our perspective slightly to reflect the fact that users often are not aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook, they are effectively trapped,” Google said in an emailed statement.
“We will no longer allow websites to automate the import of users’ Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites,” Google said.
According to Reuters, a Google spokesman said that the company had begun enforcing the new rules “gradually.”
While Google conceptualized the move as an attempt to protect its users’ ability to retain control of their personal data on the Internet, analysts said the move underscored the battle between Google, the world’s largest search engine, and Facebook, the dominant Internet social network.
“The important power dynamic on the Web today is this emerging conflict between Facebook and Google,” said Gartner analyst Ray Valdes. “Google needs to evolve to become a big player in the social Web and it has not been able to do that.”
“If people do search within Facebook, if they do email within Facebook, if they do instant messaging within Facebook, all of these will chip away at Google’s properties.”
This block off does not mean you cannot import their Gmail contacts into Facebook, Google stressed that users will still be able to manually download their contacts to their hard drive in “an open, machine-readable format” which can then be imported into any Web service.
Yahoo and Hotmail have reciprocity deals with Facebook where contact information gets exchanged both ways, and are still available through Facebook Connect.
Google is increasingly competing with Palo Alto, California-based Facebook for visitors and advertising dollars, and internally developing a competitor to Facebook, people familiar with the matter have said, it has called on Facebook to provide more access to user information.
Nevertheless, the move comes six years after Facebook’s launch and the social networking site now has more than 500 million users, many of whom previously exported their Gmail contacts lists to Facebook.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.