Google Confused, Facebook Wants To Sit Down And Talk

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Google Confused, Facebook Wants To Sit Down And Talk

Just a couple of days after Facebook decided to block Google's new service, Friend Connect, from accessing their website, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he is now willing to sit down and talk with Google about the privacy issues that led to this situation in the first place.

Zuckerberg explained during a press conference in Tokyo that as long as there is a possibility of data to be redistributed to third parties without the users' knowledge, there is no other way, PC World reported. According to Facebook' CEO, the fact that people know exactly what happens with the information they are sharing is what makes the system work.

Furthermore, Zuckerberg said that they haven't been notified of Friend Connect prior to the launch, leaving them with no choice but to follow the rules they apply for any developer on top of their platform. However, he continued, they are willing to work it out, considering it's Google we're talking about.

Last week, Facebook motivated the decision to block Friend Connect by saying that user information reaches third party sites while exporting profile information, and that went against the social networking site's rule, according to which users should be aware at all times who they share their information with.

Friend Connect enables sites to let users log in and identify themselves in an easy way. Existing user names from Google partners such as AOL or Yahoo can be used to connect to the sites running the Friend Connect service.

With Friend Connect, Google tries to take profit of the growing popularity the social sites are starting to have and of the fact that more and more people are starting to own accounts on more than one site, making them wish for a service where contact information can be exported. Facebook launched a similar service in 2006, called Facebook Connect.

Facebook announced last week that Google's access will be restored as soon as the issue will be solved, however, Google still seems to be a bit confused about what the social networking site wants them to do.