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so Google wants to crawl Facebook

From ZDNet comes a post reporting of Google's CEO pleading to crawl Facebook.  Quoted as saying "If it's not searchable by Google, it's not open, and open is best for the consumer,".  Hmmm, best for the consumer or marketer?  Eric Schmidt is quoted as then going on to say that people should be able to move from place to place on the Web with their data.  I fully support the notion of me being able to do that and am pleased to see the OpenSocial initiative however that is quite different to a site being 'crawlable'. Its kind of strange seeing Facebook being portrayed as some sort of champion for protection of people's data given the way that many Facebook apps work and their past experiences.  Anyway, it would be nice as a user to be able to make that choice myself.  Do I want Google to crawl through my Facebook data or not?  Why should it be the choice of Facebook and/or Google?

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Posted May 2, 2008