HN Explorer

14 comments

[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 55.7 ms ] thread
philfreo
None of this is news :)
patrickaljord
And you still can't export your friends (except for the useless text list of names).
philwelch
The idea--which I am rather partial to--is that my email address is my information, not yours.
phwd
Could you explain this ? I am confused now.. I was under the impression that your email address is not exportable if you do not display it http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy. So is not similar to me manually writing it down on paper ?
enneff
I just can't sympathize with this viewpoint at all. Your email address is the first thing you give out to your contacts, so that they can contact you. Before Facebook, anyone who wanted to contact you via the Internet would need to know it. A "friends list" is totally useless without this one vital piece of information.
mayukh
So "friends" need your permission to email you ? I am comfortable with the idea that my friends will store my email address in their personal address book (or data store)...
parano
No, that's why I have my email visible to friends.

However, that doesn't mean I give them permission to easily mass import it through Facebook to whatever *Ville app is popular that day. If they allowed email export, my email is very quickly being hidden.

patrickaljord
You would have a point if I couldn't see your email by clicking on your info tab...
philwelch
Likewise, you would have a point if Facebook allowed me to export your profile, not just my own.
patrickaljord
My original point was that Facebook should allow me to export my contacts, at least the info they chose to share with me.
storborg
A problem here is that the 'download my data' feature doesn't let you download any sort of primary key for your friends. A name is not a primary key--I have many friends with the exact same name.
codejoust
Can't you just run a bunch of API calls, then zip the result?
jaredsohn
The problem is that the API will only return the email field for the current user (assuming the 'email' permission is set.)
henry81
Same argument I see others posted. I downloaded my data ONLY to get my friends contact information. They don't give you that. The wall posts, photos, and friends names have zero value to me.