The Google Friend Connect service would allow any Web site to have social networking features. This would allow users to go on a different Web site, and access their photos, profile, blogs, etc and update them accordingly.

Facebook is apparently not up for this idea at all though as they do not want Facebook users to interact with Google Friend Connect it seems.

Facebook engineer Charlie Cheever wrote in a blog post that “We’ve found that Google Friend Connect redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.”

Google has argued that it is not a privacy issue at all, as all Google Friend Connect does is give users full control over their data.

We will have to wait and see how this turns out, but it is clear and apparent that Facebook is not in the mood to connect with Google in any way as of right now.

Facebook announced Friday the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data and authentication credentials to external Web sites. It makes the company the latest major Web site to embrace the concept of data portability.

The formal announcement was made through a post on Facebook’s developer blog by senior platform manager Dave Morin, who has been one of the company’s most visible evangelists in the developer community over the past year. Facebook Connect will launch within the next few weeks.

Through Facebook Connect, members will be able to use their Facebook identities across the Web–profile photos, names, photos, friends, groups, events, and other information. Facebook profile content, for example, could appear on other social sites, and Facebook event listings could theoretically connect with external event and invitation services.

Facebook will handle the authentication process, and while privacy controls have not been made clear, the company has stressed that user security will be a priority. And there’s reason to believe Facebook will be particularly careful: The company already partners with outside services to share data in its Beacon advertising program, and the PR missteps surrounding Beacon’s launch are something that Facebook likely does not want to repeat.

It’s a big move for the site. Until this point, Facebook has had a reputation for keeping its cards close to its chest–even banning the account of popular blogger Robert Scoble when he used a script to export his Facebook contact list to Plaxo. But Facebook has a representative in the Data Portability Workgroup, and executives have said that Facebook has wanted to bring its information outside the site eventually.

“These are just a few steps Facebook is taking to make the vision of data portability a reality for users worldwide,” Morin wrote in his blog post. “We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It’s about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”

Last month, Facebook started partnering with other social sites to pull external data into Facebook’s “mini-feeds,” displaying user activity from the likes of Flickr and Yelp on Facebook profile pages.

No partner Web sites for Facebook Connect have been announced yet, but director of platform Ben Ling explained to CNET News.com that “there’s been a lot of partner interest.” One partner, however, was displayed in mockups on Facebook’s developer blog: social news site Digg.

The technical details also remain unannounced. “We’re not announcing the details of the partner integration today,” Ling said. “What we’re announcing at a high level is that we will have a program that’s built into partners large and small, and they will be able to access Facebook Connect.”

Facebook kick-started the social-networking developer platform craze when it launched the Facebook Platform a year ago. But on Thursday, bigger rival MySpace made a big move when it opened its own profile content to outside sites–in a sense the reverse of Facebook’s famous decision to welcome external developers onto its own site. Facebook representatives said Friday that there are now more than 350,000 developers from 225 countries developing for the platform, although one prominent programmer said earlier this week that he believes activity may be slowing.

Facebook has also held over 50 “developer garage” events in 10 countries, and Ling said that Facebook Connect will be discussed at future “garages.”

One Facebook insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said to CNET News.com that the project had been in the works for quite some time, and said the announcement wasn’t issued as a response to MySpace’s “Data Availability” project. “We actually think what they are up to is pretty cool.”

Representatives from MySpace were not immediately available for comment.

MySpace has partnered with the likes of eBay and Yahoo for Data Availability, which means that many of the Web’s biggest names are now warming up to the idea of social-network identity portability. It’s likely to be popular with users eager to quell the onset of “social fatigue” from too many logins and profiles, but privacy and security advocates may raise a red flag–as might advertisers, to whom Facebook’s walled-in user base was ideal for targeted marketing. Spreading that data across the Web could complicate matters on that front.

Original Story can be found here.

“The agreement marks another watershed step toward social networking safety, protecting kids from online predators and inappropriate content,” said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced the agreement Thursday with his counterparts in other states.

Officials from Washington, D.C., and 49 states have signed on.

Facebook, which has more than 70 million active users worldwide, already has enacted many of the changes and others are in the works, its officials said Thursday.

“Building a safe and trusted online experience has been part of Facebook from its outset,” said Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer. “The attorneys general have shown great leadership in helping to address the critical issue of Internet safety, and we commend them for continuing to set high standards for all players in the online arena.”

Texas did not endorse the agreement or a similar one reached in January among the other states, the District of Columbia and MySpace, the world’s largest online social network with 200 million users worldwide.

Texas officials say they want the sites to work faster on verifying users’ ages and identities.

The attorneys general have been negotiating for months with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook.

“Social networks that encourage kids to come to their sites have a responsibility to keep those kids safe,” North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said. “We’ve now gotten the two largest social networking sites to agree to take significant steps to protect children from predators and pornography.”

MySpace, Facebook and other online networks have created a new venue where sexual predators could lie about their age to lure young victims to chat, share images and sometimes meet in person, law enforcement officials said.

The networks also have empowered cyberbullies, who have sent threatening and anonymous messages to classmates, acquaintances and other users.

John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, said research shows online bullies are far more common than sexual predators.

“It’s very rare for an adult to meet a child on a social network and to do them harm, although the ones that do occur get a huge amount of attention, and they are terrible,” he said.

Online bullying, whether through instant-message programs or social networks, is on the rise, he said.

The issue has gained national attention after recent high-profile cases, including the 2006 suicide of a 13-year-old Missouri girl who was victimized by an Internet ruse. Megan Meier hanged herself after receiving nasty online comments from a MySpace friend who turned out to be fictional, invented by two acquaintances and the mother of one of those girls.

Other children have been the subjects of harassment campaigns, including whole sites set up to deride them.

“What’s going on online is not much different than bullying on the playground,” Palfrey said. “It just happens to be playing out in public spaces where kids are spending a lot of time online.”

Facebook and MySpace let users block online bullies and others from contacting them. They also can conceal their “online now” status and use privacy controls to limit who can view their images and other measures.

Among other measures, Facebook agrees to:

_ Ensure companies offering services on its site comply with its safety and privacy guidelines.

_ Keep tobacco and alcohol ads from users too young to purchase those products.

_ Remove groups whose comments or images suggest they may involve incest, pedophilia, bullying or other inappropriate content.

_ Participate in the Harvard-based task force set up in January under the national agreement with MySpace. It includes scholars, a prosecutor, businesses, state officials and child safety advocates.

_ Send warning messages when a child is in danger of giving personal information to an adult.

_ Review users’ profiles when they ask to change their age, ensuring the update is legitimate and not intended to let adults masquerade as children.

The protections included in the MySpace and Facebook pacts could be expanded to smaller services such as Friendster and Bebo, Blumenthal said.

“We’re entering a new era in social networking safety,” Blumenthal said. “This agreement is open-ended in envisioning advances in technology that will permit even stronger steps in the future toward protecting kids’ safety.”

If you were to believe mobile social networks about their advertising predictions, they will by 2012 be raking in between $28 to $52 billion dollars in ad revenue. Given that normal online ad revenue only broke $27 billion for the first time in 2007, and with predicted drops in ad budgets due to the economic recession, the mobile predictions seem a bit hard to swallow.

Colin Gibbs of RCRWirelessNews brings us these predictions from Informa Telecoms & Media, and they may seem outrageous. They do to me, anyhow. Traditional online topped $27 billion globally with devices (PCs) people are more accustomed. But mobile is something that is still in a state of relative infancy in a large portion of the world. Yes, mobile handsets are everywhere, but how many places use them beyond their phone features on a regular basis? Japan is well known for their tendency to do everything from their handsets, but in countries such as the United States, you might see us doing simple checks for sports scores or the weather; intensive, fully- interactive browsing is not quite the norm. Yet.

The iPhone has changed this somewhat, and with the 3G model expected to launch soon, people may spend a bit more time doing things from their mobiles. But I have to posit a question: Will it be checking their pre-existing accounts on sites like Facebook? Or will it be going to mobile-only sites such as Buzzd? While Informa says the whole lot will boom, I think the picture is a little more complex.

Mobile networks are going to have some successes, but my feeling is that there will be fewer in operation than the current litany of traditional social networks housed in full-sized browsers. That isn’t to say some crossover will not occur. A social network that is on both the computer and the phone will of course be significantly more successful due to their ability to connect people to their one source of social information. If I’m sitting at the computer already, why should I pick up my phone to converse with friends or track their activities? Naturally, the computer, whether it be a desktop or laptop, is where I will offer my focus. However, if I’m on the go, it certainly is nice convenience to be able to check in with a site I routinely use when at my main Internet terminal.

So, for the next few years, networks with primarily desktop-based sites will logically receive a good amount of additional revenue as they release and regularly enhance feature-rich mobile applications to complement main operations. Mobile-only services may have a harder go at success. Yes, Twitter and a number of other services have grown largely due to mobile usage. But they’re still very much rooted in the traditional full-fledged browser environment. Only if they bridge that gap will the torrent of users (and, subsequently, billions of dollars) pour in.

Facebook is generally considered to be among the safest of social networks in terms of sharing personal media, mainly because of the increasing number of privacy options that are available to users. While security breaches are common enough to know that there’s an inherent risk in sharing personal information across social networks (and yes, email too), a recent loophole in Facebook’s photo albums is quick to remind us that every once in a while, bad things happen.

After releasing new security options for user privacy, Facebook’s loophole was unearthed by Vancouver computer technician Byron Ng, reports the Associated Press. What he found was a way to pull up photos from users on Facebook, even if the photos had been marked as restricted to certain users only. What’s more, is the accessible photos from these users could come from strangers on the site, meaning the loophole allowed for Ng to view images from users that he’s not friends with on Facebook.

This security breach was confirmed by an AP reporter, who was even able to view photos from Mark Zuckerberg’s account, placed on Facebook in November, 2005. Ng was also able to view private photos of Paris Hilton at the Emmy Awards, and her brother Nicholas drinking beer with friends. Facebook has since resolved the security breach, and there won’t likely be any lawsuits as a result (we know how Paris feels about her images being shared on the Web). But even if you’re not Paris Hilton, keep this particular security breach in mind when uploading naughty or compromising images of yourself, and your friends too!

 Source: Mashable

Concerned about security for users, especially minors, social networking Web site Facebook this week introduced new privacy features. These features give users more control over who can or cannot see data stored on their profile pages.

The new privacy controls let users choose which of their friends can see information such as photo albums, mobile phone number or e-mail addresses, PC World said report. 
 
Last November, Facebook launched an online advertising tool, Beacon. This raised the issue of security, with bloggers and privacy experts condemning the program for being confusing and potentially dangerous for users, PC World said. These concerns were compounded when it was revealed that Beacon tracked Web behavior and sent data back to Facebook without notifying users. Under heavy criticism, Facebook was forced to redesign Beacon.

Now, Facebook is responding to the concerns by taking precautions intended to ensure users’ privacy, without introducing tools or interfaces that are confusing.
 
“We’ve introduced a standardized privacy interface that users will see when they’re editing their privacy setting anywhere,” Facebook’s product manager, Naomi Gleit, was quoted as saying in the PC World report.
 
With the new tools, users can share information about themselves with a wider group of people. This is possible because of a “friends-of-friends” feature. The new privacy features do not have any relationship to Beacon, PC World noted.
 
Facebook clearly wants to provide powerful tools for its users that are easy to use. But this is easier said than done considering the sheer size of the Facebook user base, spread all across the globe, PC World noted. Just 18 months ago, 90 percent of Facebook’s users were in the U.S. Today, about two-thirds of the 67 million active members are from outside the country. While the problems of the Web site were relatively easier to solve earlier, it is now getting difficult for the company to do so as its user base broadens.
 
Also this week, Facebook announced the introduction of a chat software that can be used to connect with other Facebook users, so long as they are logged into the Facebook Web site, PC World said.

Source: TMCnet