14 comments

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  ianbetteridge

  1 year ago

  Well, the interesting point is that, whoever the data that Robert is scraping belongs to, it isn't him. Either it belongs to Facebook (as users have "given" it to the site), or to the individuals who provided it.
  
  More succinctly: When I "friend" someone on Facebook, am I giving them implicit permission to take the data I allow them access to and port it elsewhere? Or am I just giving them the right to access it via Facebook? If it's the latter, then Robert was in the wrong.
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  mathewi

  1 year ago

  That's a good point, Ian -- I suppose the 5,000 members of FOS
  (friends of Scoble) could argue that it's their data. Does that mean
  he shouldn't have taken it? I think they effectively gave it to him
  when they added him as a friend. In any case, I think he has at least
  as much right to it as Facebook does.
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  ianbetteridge

  1 year ago

  Facebook clearly has the right to do with my data whatever I've agreed to in the ToS (and if I don't want it to do so, I shouldn't use the service - but that's another issue). Robert clearly has the right to access my data using Facebook. But does he have the right to take that data and use it elsewhere without my further consent?
  
  For things like phone numbers, email address, and so on I suspect most people would say "yes". It makes sense that if I allow Robert to know what my email address is, then he can put it anywhere - in his Mac's Address Book, in Plaxo (although some would object to that), and so on. But Facebook doesn't just deal in contact information. Does Robert have the right to port my wall posts, my iLike preferences, or my saved items? Can he take the photos I've allowed him access to and use them elsewhere? The answers are less clear about these kinds of social data.
  
  Isn't this analogous in some ways to the Google Reader Shared Items blogstorm, in that - if Facebook were to suddenly allow data scraping when it previously hasn't - it would be changing the way in which data it has been trusted with is being allowed to be used?
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  mathewi

  1 year ago

  A fair point, Ian. I don't know enough about what Scoble has scraped
  -- is it just names and addresses and email addresses, or is it other
  preferences and photos?
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  ianbetteridge

  1 year ago

  Apprently name, email address and DOB, which makes many of the points above moot (although interesting hypothetical questions).
  
  I think the point we have to ask is what the expectations are of users who friend someone. You clearly expect them to have access to whatever data you make available to them through Facebook. You don't, though, expect them to take that data wholesale and sell it to a spammer. So while friending someone is saying "you can use this information", it's not saying "you can use this information in any way you see fit". That would be ABusing the information.
  
  The question is whether Scoble's scraping of friends data and porting it into Plaxo is using, or abusing. For some people (me included) it's fine. For others, though, particularly those hostile to Plaxo (and there are a few around), it would be abusing it.
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  mathewi

  1 year ago

  I agree, Ian -- although there's a pretty big difference between
  taking that data and selling it to a spammer and importing it into
  Plaxo. Despite Plaxo's failings, I don't think importing data into it
  is much different from importing it into GMail or any other contact
  manager. But I agree there are questions there that remain to be
  answered.
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  Penn Kemp

  1 year ago

  Right on. Write on, Matthew!
  
  And Happy New Year...
  Penn Kemp
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  Charlie

  1 year ago

  @ianbetteridge Totally agree... in fact, posted about it: http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2008/01/you-d... Friendship data belongs to two people and others trusted the TOS to put it up there. Spot on!
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  Jope

  1 year ago

  I'm fascinated by all this... Surely Scoble and everyone on FB pressed 'ok' to the button asking to confirm the Terms of Service when joining FB, no?
  
  So what's all the fuss about? Move to another social site, or create a new, more open one. But if he did something against the ToS, he got caught, tough luck...
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  Jose

  1 year ago

  Why is this even a story? People get bounced from Facebook and reinstated everyday. Just because it's a self-important twit like Scoble ("I run these things so you don't have to...") -- who is openly violating the TOS to boot -- the entire blogosphere has to go nuts? Use the bloody site for what it's intended, if you don't like it then leave and/or build your own network.
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  TDavid

  1 year ago

  If you have to scrape it (and OCR the email addys) without permission that's a pretty good sign it's not kosher activity. Add that to Scoble's history of violating the TOS because he disagrees with things and I'm surprised that's not a bigger part of the coverage here.
  
  Yes, more data portability would be great, but I'm seriously questioning the tactics employed in this case.
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  michaelocc

  1 year ago

  A hearty "hear hear" Mathew, for picking up on the key question at the heart of this little kerfuffle - whose data is it? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
  
  I've been fretting and gnashing my teeth about this particular issue for a while now (see here foe example: http://snipurl.com/1vjwn). One of the worrying, unresolved issues in the whole social media space is the grey and fuzzy area of business models predicated on mining other people's info. This is not an issue unique to Facebook, btw - and they're certainly not the most blatant of the YASNS providers out there.
  
  I'll spare you the full, rambling thesis here, but in short - User Generated Content makes money; just not necessarily for the user themselves. Build a popular social network and get enough punters to participate willingly (signing up to a ToS they probably didn't even read that gives you the right to do whatever they will with your contributed data), and you can build yourself a nice little revenue machine.
  
  I wrote about this recently both on the blog and in a mailing list I'm subscribed to.
  
  One of the responses I received compared the wonders of the UGC space to the pyramids:
  
  "It seems to me that the social network buildup is similar to the great wonders of the world (bear with me)...Just as the pharaohs were not the ones who actually built the pyramids, the network owners are not the ones building the primary substance of the networks. And yet, the pharaohs are the ones who get the credit and majority of the reward much like the owners get the credit and the reward."
  
  OK, so that's a bit of a stretch, perhaps, but it's an entertaining conceit.
  
  So - what's most worrying in the ToS violation is not what Robert was doing that broke FB's rules, but the rules themselves - and the fact that we're all blithely accepting such rules of data ownership without giving them too much extra thought.
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  paul smith

  1 year ago

  God you are such a Techcrunch wannabe writer. You think the Sun shines out of Arrington's ar$e.
  
  "according to this post from Mike Arrington at TechCrunch. I agree with Mike that Plaxo is to blame here just as much as Facebook."
  
  Plaxo is not to blame. FB needs to be made open. Try out Facebook Sync on the Mac this works with my address book.
  
  Although I do agree with Ian Betteridge. What if Scoble wanted to take "his" social graph/data and import it onto Hustler.com without your permission but you were listed as one of his 5000 friends? What if Hustler then started sending you pornographic messages. Whose data would it be then?
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  mathewi

  1 year ago

  Paul, if you don't like the blog, feel free to take your readership
  and your comments elsewhere.
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