Search engine and online service provider Google has fallen into disputes with social network Facebook over ‘data portability’. Google has blocked access to its Contacts service from Facebook, citing poor standards in data sharing on Facebook’s part as the cause. Facebook allowed users to access their contacts list from Google’s Gmail service to find friends who are also using the social networking site. Google has criticised Facebook for making the export of its own contact data extremely difficult whilst taking advantage of the superior export facilities offered by other services.

Facebook responded by taking advantage of the ability to download a contacts file manually from Gmail and automating the process so that the download from Gmail and upload of that file back to Facebook is done smoothly. Google didn’t like this approach it seemed, and started showing the following page when some users were directed to the download from Facebook:

What’s your take on Google’s passive aggressive tactics? Are they fighting for open standards or causing a general nuisance? Let us know in the comments.

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