by Andrew Redfern @ 16th May 2008 9:08 am

Perhaps mindful of the furore over it’s Beacon project Facebook has took a step backwards from the Google lead Friends Connect system. Noted several blog post on the subject the best of which are a Inside Facebook and AllFacebook. Both quote Facebook’s Charlie Cheever as saying “All Facebook Platform developers agree to the Developer Terms of Service, which strictly limit the collection, use, and redistribution of user information. We have technology and a team to ensure applications abide by those policies.

We’re excited that our industry partners are taking greater steps toward openness and enabling users to share their information around the web. We hope, though, that we can collectively find a model that allows users to share data while protecting the privacy of our users’ data and ensuring that the user is always in control.”

In the past, when we found applications passing user data to another party (for instance, to ad networks for the purpose of targeting), we suspended those applications and worked with those developers to ensure they respect user privacy. Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology. We’ve found that it 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. Just as we’ve been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we’ve had to suspend Friend Connect’s access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance. We’ve reached out to Google several times about this issue, and hope to work with them to enable users to share their data exactly when and where they choose.

We think MySpace’s Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, and Facebook Connect can be part of a great movement in the industry to give users a better and safer experience online, while respecting user privacy. We look forward to working with our developer community and everyone else in the industry to help all of our users take their information, and their privacy, with them wherever they go.

This is a significant move by Facebook and a telling sign that they’ve heeded the lessons of a Beacon debacle.

Other Related Stories That May Be Of Interest:

1. Facebook Expands its Social Platform With Facebook Connect
2. Facebook analytics
3. OneRiot Adds Facebook Connect
4. Google to bring social networking to a website near you
5. Microsoft & Amazon to launch Facebook apps
6. Mark Zuckerberg talks about Facebook Social Ads
7. Facebook suspend application developer over privacy violation
8. Google’s Facebook killer OpenSocial details leaked
9. Facebook addresses growing spam on network
10. Profile of a Facebook user

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