The controversy over the control of user information in social networks intensifies as Facebook blocks Open-Xchange’s contact exporting tool. Facebook once again asserts its control over the contact information of its users.

Just last week, open-source and collaboration systems provider Open-Xchange launched a free demo tool, Social OX, which enables users to control their own data. With Social OX, users can transfer their Facebook friends in other social sites and e-mail accounts. Users would just need to create an account. Open-Xchange indicated that all the information stored in the account is considered as an individual’s private data, and emphasized that Social OX is not a public cloud service.

Social OX does not actually copy e-mail addresses; instead first names and last names are used to look for matching records in a user’s account. But on July 10, Facebook blocked the tool, saying that it violates its terms and conditions. Open-Xchange Chief Executive Rafael Laguna said that they received an e-mail from Facebook explaining reasons for blocking the API.

“We’re writing to inform you that your app Connector for ox.io has been disabled for the following violations:

“You cannot use a user’s friend list outside of your application, even if a user consents to such use, but you can use connections between users who have both connected to your application. (FPP II.11)

“Our expectation is that developers do not provide users with poor experiences, such as those resulting from inappropriate or misleading content, privacy and security vulnerabilities, and general spam in the Stream, Requests, and elsewhere. We appreciate your commitment to improving the application ecosystem on Platform.”

This is not the first time that Facebook blocked a contact exporting tool. Recently, Facebook blocked a Chrome extension developed by Mohamed Mansour. Aside from names, the API also takes e-mail addresses, phone numbers, birthdays and other information. The string of API bans merely represents larger battles Facebook constantly fights, regularly going head-to-head with Google over privacy standards and contact sharing.

With Facebook’s stance on protecting its users, the Yahoo case stirs questions about Facebook’s intentions. Using Yahoo importer, a user could easily access Facebook Connect and export contacts into their Yahoo account. iPhone users could also import and sync all their Facebook data into a unified address book. These methods are very much the same with Open-Xchange’s API. It’s just really absurd why only Open-Xchange’s tool is blocked.

In response to Facebook, Open-Xchange sent an e-mail explaining their side and a quick jab on Yahoo:

“We are not aware of violating anything. We are using your API to extract the last name and first name fields. We are not parsing or scraping the email address. That same data is available at your site under “Account->Account Settings->Download Your Information” in the resulting friends.html file.

Is there a way to get sanctioned or even paid access? You must have some kind of arrangement with Yahoo, which even has an import capability of not only the names but also the Facebook e-mail addresses? How can Yahoo do it without violating points 1 and 2 above?”