

“Trap my contacts now,” reads the Google contacts export form when viewed during Facebook registration. This stems from a battle between Facebook and Google over data portability—or particularly, that Facebook just doesn’t like to let go of anything it takes in (even when the user wants them to.)
Yesterday, SiliconANGLE covered how Facebook found a way around Google’s requirement for reciprocity when exchanging contacts (by using the user as an intermediary) after Google blocked the social network site. This next exchange puts the ball squarely in Google’s court as they warn users what they’re getting into by exporting their contacts, as they say,
Hold on a second. Are you super sure you want to import your contact information for your friends into a service that won’t let you get it out?
Here’s the not-so-fine print. 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. So once you import your data there, you won’t be able to get it out. We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there. Although we strongly disagree with this data protectionism, the choice is yours. Because, after all, you should have control over your data.
Taken directly from the export confirm page—and an obvious snipe at Facebook’s roach trap policy. The page includes links to tools that Google themselves offers so that users can download their contacts to their own computer (which Facebook uses to import without Google’s knowledge.) So it looks like Google’s move to embargo Facebook at least doesn’t hurt their own customer’s ability to do what they want with their own data.
However, without the ability to pull contacts out of Facebook… It does put the social network at the other end of the usability spectrum from the search giant’s open policy.
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