Facebook Sued by documents Access

July 10, 2009 · Print This Article

Late last year, a web service called capability.com launched with the aim of allowing users to unify their use of multiple social networks. Facebook quickly filed a lawsuit, objecting to the (user-authorized) gathering of their goods. Reader sufijazz writes with news that ability.com has now countersued Facebook, saying, “Facebook improperly restricts its users’ access to their private info,” and that Facebook’s own goods scraping makes their lawsuit an attempt to stifle competition. According to TechCrunch, “Facebook can point to

its efforts with Facebook Connect, which lets you log in with your Facebook username at third party sites and import some choose goods from your profile, as evidence of its openness. But that isn’t true goods portability, it’s just a new walled garden — third parties are generally only allowed to cache your input, which means that you’re still tethered to Facebook.”