Most of us got a taste yesterday of the whole Facebook-kicks-Scoble-off debate. After several hours and numerous posts on the subject from various bloggers, Facebook explained that this was a standard security process against all kinds of scripts.
When our systems detect these types of scripts, they immediately disable the account of the user responsible as a preventative measure.
The aftermath of this story brings up a series of questions:
Is there a monopoly of data?
When Facebook noticed a potential competitor (Plaxo), it did its best to block its development (in this case by forbidding the extraction of data). Plaxo’s script wouldn’t extract any data that the users kept hidden – only the ones, that were public (see Wired’s post on that).
When Scoble explained to Facebook his (not malicious) purpose, Facebook replied:
Since you contacted us and have agreed not to run the script again, we have reactivated your account. You should now be able to log in with your normal email and password. In the future, please refrain from running these types of scripts again.
So although the script wasn’t malicious, Scoble (or anyone else for that matter) is not allowed to use it.
Other social software (linkedin, yahoo, etc.) seem fine with the implementation of their services in plaxo.
It seems to me that Facebook tries to monopolize a service, with malicious ways.
[The coming war over data is a thorough post on data ownership]
Who owns the social network?
So Facebook actually implied that users (and developers) are allowed to bring data in, but not allowed to bring data out.
In other words, the contacts in your digital address book are your friends, but the data belongs to the network.
Social networks are explicitly made out of people. Without people, these networks wouldn’t exist.
Nonetheless, Facebook has clarified its opinion on that one:
Your network belongs to the service provider.
[An interesting discussion about this subject can be found at Center Networks]
Which social engine to trust?
- Do you read the Terms of Use, when you sign up in a social network? I don’t, but maybe I should. Facebook makes it clear in the Terms of Use that we have a limited access to our network:
All content on the Site and available through the Service, including designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the “Site Content”), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved. [...]
Except for your own User Content, you may not upload or republish Site Content on any Internet, Intranet or Extranet site or incorporate the information in any other database or compilation, and any other use of the Site Content is strictly prohibited. Such license is subject to these Terms of Use and does not include use of any data mining, robots or similar data gathering or extraction methods.
- Maybe we should take a more careful look on the protection the network provides.
After this whole story, I got the impression that Facebook is very safe. I mean it blocks any kind of scripts, no matter what.
But it doesn’t seem so.
Although Facebook tries its best to protects its users from any kind of scams, some spyware still made it through; and it gets worse with phishing scams.
Conclusion
What to do? What to do?
After such a discussion, do you still remain a Facebook member?
I mean you will lose your big, nice network of friends.
It is a moral question, i think. I never was a Facebook fan (I had a network of 10 friends), so I have nothing to lose.
But think about it. Do you really have something to lose?
