Google Limits Facebook Access to Gmail Contac

Google Limits Facebook Access to Gmail Contacts

Google Inc. is launching a salvo against Facebook Inc., saying it will no longer allow the social network to grab information about Google users' social and professional contacts in Gmail, Google's email service.
Google has always allowed Google users to transfer data, including their contacts, to other websites. Until now, new Facebook users could find out whether their contacts on Gmail also had Facebook accounts, simply by typing in their Gmail user name and password as part of the Facebook signup process.

That Google policy has helped Facebook grow because it helped new users instantly create a network of friends on the site. Unlike Google, Facebook doesn't allow its users to export their contacts data to other websites.

With Google becoming more and more interested in social networking and internally developing a competitor to Facebook, people familiar with the matter have said, it has called on Facebook to provide more access to user information.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt recently said Google hoped to get access to Facebook users' contact lists so that people can expand their social network on Google, though he added there were alternatives if Facebook didn't comply.

Facebook hasn't, leading Google to change its position this week. Google no longer allows Facebook to help users automatically export their Google contacts data as long Facebook continues to block Google from gaining the same access to Facebook contacts data with users' permission.
A Google spokesman said in a statement that its policy change reflects "the fact that users often aren't aware that once they have imported their contacts into sites like Facebook they are effectively trapped.
"We hope that reciprocity will be an important step towards creating a world of true data liberation—and that this move will encourage other websites to allow users to automate the export of their contacts as well," the spokesman continued.
Google users can always export their contacts from Gmail and other Google services to their computers in a machine-readable format, the spokesman said. Once they have done that, they can then import those contacts to Facebook.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment.

Google's move, reported earlier by TechCrunch, can be seen as largely symbolic. It comes six years after Facebook's launch and the social networking site now has more than 500 million users, many of whom previously exported their Gmail contacts lists to Facebook.

In addition to competing on the social-networking front, Google and Facebook are expected to compete more heavily in the race to sell so-called display ads online.
—Geoffrey A. Fowler contributed to this article. Write to Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com


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