Facebook’s got a new policy in place, listing 40 approved ad providers for developers to use on its network.  Beginning later this month, the list of some 40 allowed networks will define the manner of campaigns across the social network.  What stands out about the deal is Google’s absence from the list.  Another nod to the opponent? The condition for participation is to not use Facebook user data–wasn’t that always the case?

Facebook is open to adding providers to the list based on this basic condition. “We are continuing to work with various ad providers and will add them to the list as they sign the terms. Note that the policy doesn’t go into effect for a few more weeks.”  Yet, ad spending on Facebook will more than double to $4.05 billion this year, according to researcher eMarketer.  Adding to third party data leakage in the past, Facebook also faced security issues, in 2010 the social network caught egg on its face with a nasty worm that was downloaded around 28,000 times.

The war between Facebook and Google is an old story that seems to perpetuate even more nowadays. Google’s got its own agenda to worry about.  Last year we covered Google’s decision of preventing Facebook, and other similar parties, from using it to improve their friends’ database.  Facebook retaliated with its own new regulation, saying it would “no longer allow websites to automate the import of users’ Google Contacts (via our API) unless they allow similar export to other sites.”

Google and Facebook have been trying to lure each other’s engineers by making tempting offers, such as considerable raises and company stocks that were either accepted or rejected. Although this might seem silly, it is making things worse for startups such as Cloudera that need engineers that Google and Facebook employ. With increasing salaries from oneday to another, it becomes almost impossible for startups to hire Big Data engineers. 

What this war also tells us is how serious the battle over big data is going to become.  The stunning thing about Facebook is how quickly it’s been able to amass such valuable data.  Google’s been at it for years, on an extremely large scale.  Facebook’s taken a swift approach that leverages the technology, business methods and networks that dominated, and stumbled, before them.  When it comes to web data, the question has become, what’s the best path to collecting and utilizing social data?

Starting back in fall 2010, Google expressed its intentions of introducing social networking in layers, after the demise of Wave, a high-profile online communication service launched in 2009. CEO Eric Schmidt stated that ‘with your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality [ad quality] can get better’. It is terrifying to know that Google knows absolutely everything about us by analysing out internet searching and making profits out of this by selling targeted ads, and while consumers are often unknowing participants in this data collection, some government interjection vows to keep a watchful eye on Google’s methods.

Although, there are privacy agreements between giants like Facebook and Google, history shows us that ethics is not their core competency. Facebook’s had some user data slip ups, and has had to rectify its methodology as well.  The social network’s data is priceless, as they’re able to consider your entire social graph, as well as a good portion of your web behavior and preferences. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that ‘an advertiser can produce the best creative ad in the world, but knowing your friends really love drinking Coke is the best endorsement for Coke you can possibly get.’