Facebook Removes Gmail From Its Find Friends Feature

Google on the data reciprocity matter. Facebook has decided to remove Gmail from the list of third party email providers list. Last seen, there was an option of direct link downloads of contacts from Gmail.

This is probably the social networking giant’s act after Google set a condition of data reciprocity. In an amendment to its Terms of Usage, Google states that “any service that accesses Google’s Contacts API — which makes it easy to import your list of friends’ and coworkers’ email addresses into another service — will need to offer reciprocity.” Facebook did not comply with this and as such, is restricted from accessing it.

Now, a new user of Facebook from US would not find Gmail in the Find Friends list. However, users from Latin America and India, where users still can import contacts from Orkut and Gmail. Though users see only an Orkut icon, it does mention read “Friend Finder works for both your Orkut and Gmail accounts.”

TechCrunch, in its report, also said that there have been strange instances happening when some new users use Facebook. They probably sign up with their Gmail accounts, however, when they tried to use Friend Finder through Gmail, it just showed the message, “Everyone on this contact list is already on Facebook or has already been invited.” This is as good as not working.

Users who sign up with non-Gmail accounts do not get to see this. But there lies a trick of the trade which Facebook understands possibly. Gmail users can still sign up on Facebook with non-Gmail accounts and import manually the contacts onto Facebook.

At this time of war between the two giants, Facebook too had announced its own email service last week. Ironically, Mark Zuckerberg was seen praising Gmail’s Priority Index at the recently concluded Web 2.0 Summit. Surprisingly, Facebook owned Friendfeed also had the Gmail contacts import button removed from its site.

Google and Facebook are at loggerheads. But one thing is sure. Facebook does not need Google for its growth and vice versa, considering the market that each of them has captured. Whom do you think will win this?