Honestly speaking, we were very much surprised to see that Facebook yesterday disabled the API key to the free tool we built last week that allows contact information of your friends to be exported our of Facebook.
Here’s the scoop: the tool on ox.io that we developed only extracts the last and first name using Facebook’s standard API. That is the same data that the Facebook Export tool gives you in “friends.html”. Our process then harvests the related E-Mail addresses from the users own E-Mail accounts –as they have the rights use those E-Mails— and not E-Mail information from Facebook. So we are not violating anything. Here is the what Facebook had to say:
To the Connector for ox.io Team,
We’re writing to inform you that your app Connector for ox.io […] has been disabled for the following violations:
1. 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)
2. A user’s friends’ data can only be used in the context of the user’s experience on your application. (FPP II.4)
Please note that we will not re-enable violating applications and any policy issues in your existing and future apps will result in further enforcement actions.
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.
If you want to see what a future looks like where a single company controls YOUR personal data for its own profit, this is a glimpse. Clearly, Facebook management does not want you to have the ability to take your personal information outside their walls to, say, Google+ and will do everything in their power to stop you, including violating their own terms and conditions.
Here is our E-Mail to Facebook – so far we haven´t seen a reply.Jeu gonflable de l’eau
Dear Facebook,
thanks for your E-Mail explaining your inexplicable deactivation of our API key on ox.ío.
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 E-Mail 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?
Thanks for your reply
Open-Xchange
Stay tuned – this story is not over with by a long shot.