Apple Violated Facebook's Terms of Service
Quote:
Apple Violated Facebook's Terms of Service
Well, this is an interesting double standard. Remember Apple's reaction to Palm trying to tap into iTunes? They were pretty pissed, right? Well, it seems that in Apple's world, it's not okay to access their services unauthorised, but when Apple needs to do the same to someone else's services, it's suddenly not a problem. As it turns out, Apple violated Facebook's terms of service, knowingly, and willingly.
One of the many announcements made by Apple yesterday was Ping, yet another social network thing geared towards music. It is built straight into iTunes (which now officially has more features than Mac OS X itself), meaning it has a potential user base of 160 million.
In order to find friends on Ping more easily, Apple included technology to connect to other social networks and search for your friends there. Facebook is a likely candidate, obviously, and its name indeed appeared on stage during Jobs' demo. The ability to connect to Facebook in Ping also appeared in iTunes 10 for some who downloaded it, but the feature was completely turned off rather quickly. It is still being advertised on Apple's site.
We now know why. Kara Swisher details how Apple and Facebook were in negotiations about connecting Ping to Facebook. Facebook Connect is an open API and doesn't require permission for individual use, but when it comes to repeated access (160 million iTunes users, go figure), a special agreement is needed with Facebook to protect user data, and, obviously, to manage infrastructure impact.
Apple didn't like Facebooks's terms, so the two parties couldn't come to an agreement. Terms of service are apparently only valid when they're Apple's, because agreement or not, Apple turned on Facebook Connect on Ping anyway. As a result, Facebook blocked Ping, since it violated its terms of service. Apple then pulled the plug on the feature entirely.
In the end, both Facebook and Apple are companies which are pretty pure embodiments of evil, but from a company which so fiercely defends its own terms of service, you'd expect some respect for other's. Word has it the two are still negotiating, so the feature may still arrive.
And yeah, you guessed it. Slow day. There's only so much I can write about Android tablets with no shipping date.
Apple Violated Facebook's Terms of Service
Well, this is an interesting double standard. Remember Apple's reaction to Palm trying to tap into iTunes? They were pretty pissed, right? Well, it seems that in Apple's world, it's not okay to access their services unauthorised, but when Apple needs to do the same to someone else's services, it's suddenly not a problem. As it turns out, Apple violated Facebook's terms of service, knowingly, and willingly.
One of the many announcements made by Apple yesterday was Ping, yet another social network thing geared towards music. It is built straight into iTunes (which now officially has more features than Mac OS X itself), meaning it has a potential user base of 160 million.
In order to find friends on Ping more easily, Apple included technology to connect to other social networks and search for your friends there. Facebook is a likely candidate, obviously, and its name indeed appeared on stage during Jobs' demo. The ability to connect to Facebook in Ping also appeared in iTunes 10 for some who downloaded it, but the feature was completely turned off rather quickly. It is still being advertised on Apple's site.
We now know why. Kara Swisher details how Apple and Facebook were in negotiations about connecting Ping to Facebook. Facebook Connect is an open API and doesn't require permission for individual use, but when it comes to repeated access (160 million iTunes users, go figure), a special agreement is needed with Facebook to protect user data, and, obviously, to manage infrastructure impact.
Apple didn't like Facebooks's terms, so the two parties couldn't come to an agreement. Terms of service are apparently only valid when they're Apple's, because agreement or not, Apple turned on Facebook Connect on Ping anyway. As a result, Facebook blocked Ping, since it violated its terms of service. Apple then pulled the plug on the feature entirely.
In the end, both Facebook and Apple are companies which are pretty pure embodiments of evil, but from a company which so fiercely defends its own terms of service, you'd expect some respect for other's. Word has it the two are still negotiating, so the feature may still arrive.
And yeah, you guessed it. Slow day. There's only so much I can write about Android tablets with no shipping date.
http://www.osnews.com/story/23760/Apple_Violated_Facebook_s_Terms_of_Service
Comments
http://www.osnews.com/story/23760/Apple_Violated_Facebook_s_Terms_of_Service
Yeah, I think that was the term added in the 31 Aug 2010 revision.
If you exceed, or plan to exceed, any of the following thresholds please contact us as you may be subject to additional terms: (>5M MAU) or (>100M API calls per day) or (>50M impressions per day).
Note how the "terms" aren't even spelled out. It's "may be subject" etc...
The article quoted conveniently never went to the source and saw that the "terms" aren't even listed. How is that any comparison to Apple who spells it out quite explicitly. Sure some may not like Apple's terms, but at least you can see what you are dealing with up front, not have to conduct extra "contact us" communications so Facebook can make different terms for different folks at any whim they like.
Yeah, I think that was the term added in the 31 Aug 2010 revision.
Note how the "terms" aren't even spelled out. It's "may be subject" etc...
The article quoted conveniently never went to the source and saw that the "terms" aren't even listed. How is that any comparison to Apple who spells it out quite explicitly. Sure some may not like Apple's terms, but at least you can see what you are dealing with up front, not have to conduct extra "contact us" communications so Facebook can make different terms for different folks at any whim they like.
Thank you. The anti-Apple bias of the article quoted above is so obvious. Also, "In the end, both Facebook and Apple are companies which are pretty pure embodiments of evil" ...
And if it truly said "may be subject", then Apple did not go and blatantly violate the terms.
Facebook is as stable as Google when it comes to interfacing with it. These software-only juggernauts which are web-based have too much latitude with changes, sometimes.