I just received this email.
I answer Mike Arrington and several others in a video that now is up at http://www.mogulus.com/robertscoble.
UPDATE: In the video I cover a whole bunch of topics and take questions from the live audience that was there when filmed. Also, I told the audience that I am not using any Facebook data outside of Facebook and will delete the test account we used on Plaxo to do the tests.
Hi Robert,
Facebook’s Terms of Use broadly prohibits the running of automated scripts on the site because they can be used to commit malicious attacks, send spam, and generally try to undermine the integrity of the site. When our systems detect these types of scripts, they immediately disable the account of the user responsible as a preventative measure. This is what happened in your case – your automated script was exhibiting the same behavior as other malicious scripts that we have blocked before so your account was disabled.
Our standard process for handling cases when an account is disabled for security violations is to allow a user to appeal and remedy the situation. This is the process we have followed here. Since you contacted us and have agreed not to run the script again, we have reactivated your account. You should now be able to log in with your normal email and password. In the future, please refrain from running these types of scripts again.
Thanks,
Jerry
User Operations
Facebook
Your opponents are totally missing the point. As part of the action of inviting Scoble to be my friend (or accepting an invite to be his) I gave him the right to see my email address and contact me. Facebook’s “you can revoke that right at any time” is like asking to see the prices on the menu after you ordered and ate the food. (ok, the other image I had involved an adult theme)
Once someone gets to see it, it’s out there and you can’t take it back. Ask anyone in a relationship who says something and then wanted to take it back. Facebook is building a business on a principle that you surrender any rights you have to information because you choose to use their free service.
So it’s ok in your book for Facebook to scrape other sites for information, use it in ways that the web operator and the user un-intended but god forbid someone chooses to exercise their rights to information.
Here is an item to ponder. If I gave you a business card, but the card has a disclaimer that you cannot mechanically or electronically reproduce it, do you have the right to drop it into your cardscan scanner to add it to your Outlook?
If you say I don’t have that right, do you think I have the right to transcribe that information myself into an outlook contact card by entering it at the keyboard (either myself, or by contracting services to enter my data for me).
Where does the line get drawn, or do I go back to drawing on the walls of my cave instead of the wall at Facebook. BTW get all those dammed anthropologist out of my cave, those drawings are (c) 10,000BC by ME .. Didn’t you understand the squiggle, dash, dash, and circle as my copyright symbol?
Your opponents are totally missing the point. As part of the action of inviting Scoble to be my friend (or accepting an invite to be his) I gave him the right to see my email address and contact me. Facebook’s “you can revoke that right at any time” is like asking to see the prices on the menu after you ordered and ate the food. (ok, the other image I had involved an adult theme)
Once someone gets to see it, it’s out there and you can’t take it back. Ask anyone in a relationship who says something and then wanted to take it back. Facebook is building a business on a principle that you surrender any rights you have to information because you choose to use their free service.
So it’s ok in your book for Facebook to scrape other sites for information, use it in ways that the web operator and the user un-intended but god forbid someone chooses to exercise their rights to information.
Here is an item to ponder. If I gave you a business card, but the card has a disclaimer that you cannot mechanically or electronically reproduce it, do you have the right to drop it into your cardscan scanner to add it to your Outlook?
If you say I don’t have that right, do you think I have the right to transcribe that information myself into an outlook contact card by entering it at the keyboard (either myself, or by contracting services to enter my data for me).
Where does the line get drawn, or do I go back to drawing on the walls of my cave instead of the wall at Facebook. BTW get all those dammed anthropologist out of my cave, those drawings are (c) 10,000BC by ME .. Didn’t you understand the squiggle, dash, dash, and circle as my copyright symbol?
I joined Facebook because they are, relatively speaking, diligent custodians of my personal data.
I am glad Facebook detects and disables automatic scraping of my data by erstwhile “friends”.
I joined Facebook because they are, relatively speaking, diligent custodians of my personal data.
I am glad Facebook detects and disables automatic scraping of my data by erstwhile “friends”.
[...] 3: Scoble’s account has been reactivated and in a recent video he answered some of the community’s questions. addthis_url = [...]
Robert,
As a friend of yours on Facebook, I give you express written permission to scrape any personal data that I have expressly exposed to you via Facebook settings for your own personal use.
Regards,
Jay
Robert,
As a friend of yours on Facebook, I give you express written permission to scrape any personal data that I have expressly exposed to you via Facebook settings for your own personal use.
Regards,
Jay
[...] Result: Facebook lets him back in! [...]
If I tell someone my name, I am giving them permission to use it. I am essentially giving away a piece of data to be used as an index of me. They can keep it in their memory, write it down, type it up (in any font) and yes… save it into a database.
It is not the possession of someone’s personal data that is illegal. It is the abuse of that data.
If I choose to expose a piece of data on Facebook, is it not as good as a business card?
If I tell someone my name, I am giving them permission to use it. I am essentially giving away a piece of data to be used as an index of me. They can keep it in their memory, write it down, type it up (in any font) and yes… save it into a database.
It is not the possession of someone’s personal data that is illegal. It is the abuse of that data.
If I choose to expose a piece of data on Facebook, is it not as good as a business card?
I think 31 hit it right on the head – this wouldn’t happen to any random schmo, only to someone who can get a whole bunch of bad publicity to FB.
But, c’est la vie, that’s the way things work, eh?
I think 31 hit it right on the head – this wouldn’t happen to any random schmo, only to someone who can get a whole bunch of bad publicity to FB.
But, c’est la vie, that’s the way things work, eh?
Now, just leave Facebook, and choose another competitor. I wouldn’t stay with Facebook one day more.
Now, just leave Facebook, and choose another competitor. I wouldn’t stay with Facebook one day more.
But your another friend down!
But your another friend down!
[...] of people have been appealing that his account be re-instated and he got his wish. Facebook emailed him and explained the situation: Facebook’s Terms of Use broadly prohibits the [...]
[...] Well, it appears he’s been let back in. I guess he wasn’t deleted after all, and simply had his account suspended; which is hardly [...]
[...] åbnede Robert Scobles konto igen knap et døgn efter lukningen: Facebook lets me back in…, men hændelsen har fået stor opmærksomhed i det forløbne døgn, og mon ikke, Facebook bliver [...]
[...] même créée sur Facebook pour que son compte soit rétabli. Quelques heures plus tard Facebook réactive le compte de Scoble en expliquant qu’il s’agit d’une procédure standard de sécurité et que son [...]
[...] Some notes. Read that Om Malik, founder of GigaOm, had a heart attack (at age of 41) but he’s fine now. Robert Scoble has been deleted from, and by, Facebook due to data issues, but latest is he’s just been reactivated. [...]
“My FB Contacts is a free and easy way to export and backup the contact details of your friends on Facebook. Once exported you can then import your contacts in to your Gmail, Hotmail or Outlook account.”
http://myfbcontacts.blogspot.com/
“My FB Contacts is a free and easy way to export and backup the contact details of your friends on Facebook. Once exported you can then import your contacts in to your Gmail, Hotmail or Outlook account.”
http://myfbcontacts.blogspot.com/
[...] warten gebannt auf eine Reaktion von Facebook [Korrektur: Facebook hat sehr wohl rasch reagiert und erklärt, warum Scoble gesperrt wurde und den Account inzwischen wieder [...]
[...] Update: Wie zu erwarten, hat Facebook das Konto von Robert Scoble wieder freigeschaltet. Siehe dazu: Facebook lets me back in… [...]
[...] has since had his account reinstated, but not before comparing himself to Ghandi. It’s not a comparison I would have made, and [...]
[...] At least they let Scoble back in.. [...]
Final Scores:
Scoble 0 – a tool, of Plaxo, and a tool in general.
Plaxo 0 – Spam company de jour Part 2, no less, someone go knock on the Federal Trade Commission’s door, like now.
Facebook 0 – 1+ for not playing the celebrity-ego-games, but minus 1 for Beacon and everything else, but Caveat Emptor, you knew such going in.
Bloggers 0 – for bothering to care.
Me -10 – for bothering to comment.
Final Scores:
Scoble 0 – a tool, of Plaxo, and a tool in general.
Plaxo 0 – Spam company de jour Part 2, no less, someone go knock on the Federal Trade Commission’s door, like now.
Facebook 0 – 1+ for not playing the celebrity-ego-games, but minus 1 for Beacon and everything else, but Caveat Emptor, you knew such going in.
Bloggers 0 – for bothering to care.
Me -10 – for bothering to comment.
Christopher always wins! Yeah!
Christopher always wins! Yeah!
[...] girare un non meglio specificato script che viola le condizioni del servizio. Capita anche che in meno di 12 ore l’account venga riattivato a patto che il colpevole si impegni a non ripetere il reato (”Since you contacted us and have [...]
I have to wonder if they would have reactivated anybody who was not as high profile as you are.
Of course they wouldn’t have.
Plaxo can release this script, they just have to add a function that pauses a random amount of time between scraping data so that it doesn’t trigger facebook’s bot warning system.
Of course, what facebook really should do is build an XML exporter for user accounts and leave it up to third-parties to create the parsers that import this data properly. This is more a political problem than a technical one.
I have to wonder if they would have reactivated anybody who was not as high profile as you are.
Of course they wouldn’t have.
Plaxo can release this script, they just have to add a function that pauses a random amount of time between scraping data so that it doesn’t trigger facebook’s bot warning system.
Of course, what facebook really should do is build an XML exporter for user accounts and leave it up to third-parties to create the parsers that import this data properly. This is more a political problem than a technical one.
[...] Toda una hábil maniobra si no fuera porque, claro, pequeño detalle sin importancia… Facebook no está en absoluto de acuerdo. Ademas, para terminar de liarla, la reacción de Facebook ha sido la que cabía esperar dadas las circunstancias: al detectar la actividad del script, decide suspender de manera inmediata las cuentas de los usuarios que lo estaban empleando, que no eran ni más ni menos que periodistas y analistas que habían sido invitados por Plaxo para actuar como beta-testers, sin que Plaxo hubiese pedido permiso ni prevenido a Facebook en modo alguno para tal actividad. Como resultado de la batalla, personas como el enormemente popular Robert Scoble han sido suspendidos en Facebook (TechCrunch, Scobleizer) por infringir los términos de uso, con todo el ruido que ello conlleva a pesar de su prácticamente automática readmisión. [...]
Anyone on Facebook who wants to encourage them to adopt data portability should join this group- http://uga.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7134824396
Anyone on Facebook who wants to encourage them to adopt data portability should join this group- http://uga.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7134824396
How did you get it back exactly? I have two friends who made simple errors and lost months of work and contacts and no matter what facebook says badluck.
here: http://www.socialnetrockstrue.blogspot.com
How did you get it back exactly? I have two friends who made simple errors and lost months of work and contacts and no matter what facebook says badluck.
here: http://www.socialnetrockstrue.blogspot.com
[...] So… es sind keine 12 Stunden vergangen und schon hat Robert sein Facebook-Account wieder. War auch nicht anders zu erwarte, bei dem Sturm im Blogger-Glas, den die Geschichte ausgelöst [...]
[...] Scobleizer Blog [...]
[...] A Scoble hanno riattivato l’account su Facebook: “felicitazioni”. Tags:facebook, fare soldi web 2.0, In my [...]
You’re happy to go back? Despite wanting to take your social graph with you and not being allowed? Surely you’d have achieved more for those who want to be able to take such data with them by making a stand and not going back there. As it is Facebook have brushed the issue under the carpet by allowing you back, they don’t want to debate this.
Eric Rice “There was one court case where a judge ruled that a TOS was one-sided. A periphery to come from all of this is about the TOS in general. A TOS is not a law.”
Indeed there was Eric, there was the Second Life case:
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/05/31/judge-rules-against-one-sided-tos-in-bragg-lawsuit/
There was another case involving a phone company but I can’t recall which company that was.
You’re happy to go back? Despite wanting to take your social graph with you and not being allowed? Surely you’d have achieved more for those who want to be able to take such data with them by making a stand and not going back there. As it is Facebook have brushed the issue under the carpet by allowing you back, they don’t want to debate this.
Eric Rice “There was one court case where a judge ruled that a TOS was one-sided. A periphery to come from all of this is about the TOS in general. A TOS is not a law.”
Indeed there was Eric, there was the Second Life case:
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/05/31/judge-rules-against-one-sided-tos-in-bragg-lawsuit/
There was another case involving a phone company but I can’t recall which company that was.
It’s hard to believe this story about one guy being kicked out of Facebook is still garnering so much attention. Techmeme has been Scoble-ized again.
It’s hard to believe this story about one guy being kicked out of Facebook is still garnering so much attention. Techmeme has been Scoble-ized again.
[...] 4/1: Scoble får vara kvar i Facebook. Men i fortsättningen måste han hålla sig i skinnet med sina [...]
I truly do not comprehend why so many people are up in arms about Facebook’s process here. If I run automated code which rips data out of a third party environment, surely there is no argument: the community owner must disable the ‘perpetrator’ to identify the threat and to protect the platform and their users. Facebook verified the threat level and now re-activated the account, that’s good practice as far as I’m concerned. If you want to make data exports ‘kosher’, here’s a suggestion:
1. Facebook creates manual export function for account holders
2. Account holders opt in or opt out to having their data exported by their friends
I truly do not comprehend why so many people are up in arms about Facebook’s process here. If I run automated code which rips data out of a third party environment, surely there is no argument: the community owner must disable the ‘perpetrator’ to identify the threat and to protect the platform and their users. Facebook verified the threat level and now re-activated the account, that’s good practice as far as I’m concerned. If you want to make data exports ‘kosher’, here’s a suggestion:
1. Facebook creates manual export function for account holders
2. Account holders opt in or opt out to having their data exported by their friends
Thought I would through my two cents into the bucket on my blog http://www.blackandmaple.com/. I feel that Plaxo should have cleared it first before going for such a public test as they knew you would probably get shut off and it would then become public. But I also think Facebook needs to become much more open and this has really brought light to the issue.
Thanks for the video cast yesterday – I very much enjoyed listening to your responses and general tech talk!