Facebook v. Plaxo, Round 1 To Facebook
January 07, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
Facebook has banned a user account after a user attempted to export his contact data using a Plaxo "screen scraper."
Social networking site Facebook has won an initial victory over its potential rival Plaxo, the contact utility which, with Plaxo Pulse, is aspiring to be another social networking site.
According to ZDNet, it all came about when blogger Robert Scoble attempted to export the details of his 5,000 contacts using an alpha version of Plaxo’s screen-scraper. His account was blocked for a violation of service terms, and only reinstated after he agreed to stop.
Plaxo objected that the utility did nothing more than any other importer, including Facebook’s own, but to no avail.
"For some reason Facebook has gone to inordinate lengths to prevent users from getting data out of Facebook. What's good for goose is apparently not good for gander," John McCrea, vice president of marketing at Plaxo, told ZDNet.
Facebook claimed that the automated tool made it look as though a spammer was harvesting addresses.
However, there’s another twist to this story. Rumors have been circulating that Plaxo, which is valued at $200 million, is for sale, and Facebook, which has been valued as high as $15 billion, is interested in adding a more business-oriented site to its empire. Could this be a power play before a takeover? Time will tell.
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