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Facebook May Be Blocking Ping

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9:30 AM, Sep. 3rd ET, 2010
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Articles by Author Jeff Gamet on Twitter Contact Author
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Apple showed off basic Facebook integration in its new music-focused Ping social networking service, but that feature went missing shortly after users got ahold of iTunes 10. The reason Ping users lost the ability to search for friends on Facebook may be because Facebook chose to block access to that feature, according to AllThingsD.

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed off Ping during the company’s music-related media event on September 1, iTunes 10 seemed to include the ability to search user’s Facebook accounts for potential friends. Once Ping was actually available, however, the Facebook search option mysteriously disappeared for the few users that seemed to have access to it.

According to Mr. Jobs, Apple and Facebook discussed the possibility of collaborating, but Apple ultimately walked away from the negotiations over “onerous terms that we could not agree to.”

Now it appears that Apple went ahead with its plan to include Facebook friend searching in Ping, only to be blocked once the service went live, according to unnamed sources familiar with the situation. Once Apple realized Ping had been blocked from accessing Facebooks APIs coders pulled the feature out of iTunes.

For its part, Facebook seems open to working out an agreement with Apple. “Facebook and Apple have cooperated successfully in the past to offer people great social experiences and we look forward to doing so in the future,” the company said.

Since both companies seem to have different ideas on what constitutes an acceptable agreement, it may be some time before Facebook and Apple finish hammering out a deal.

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25 Observer Comments

The cart came before the horse.

I consider Apple agreeing to terms with Facebook akin to something like the American Red Cross striking a deal with the Mafia.  One company is very ethical and protective about customer privacy the other is well, like the Mafia, when it comes to user privacy.

   Actions CandTsmac said on September 3rd, 2010 at 10:00 AM (Edited: 09/03/2010 1:40 PM):

screw Facebook.

   Actions Brad Hutchings (Bosco) said on September 3rd, 2010 at 10:04 AM (Edited: 10/12/2011 8:04 PM):

Maybe Apple should try to arrange its magical musical social networking experience around the original social network: the Coleman Grill.

Steve Jobs just opened another front in Apple’s War on Everybody. There will be no deal, because Jobs would have to compromise and admit he screwed this up. That and Zuck thinks Jobs is an old fart.

   Actions Lee Dronick said on September 3rd, 2010 at 10:39 AM (Edited: 10/18/2011 6:20 PM):

If you have a Facebook account, and I do, go to your wall and make a post that you are also on Ping. Ask your friends who have iTunes accounts to also “Ping you” and if they are interested then they will probably respond.

You could, of course, manually look for your friends on iTunes.

Zuckerberg, if he was smart, would team with Apple for design and collaboration. At least Facebook wouldn’t look and behave as if it were designed by some kid wearing a hoodie. Well I was a bit glib about Zuckerberg not being smart, he was smart enough to make himself a millionaire, but he is getting in trouble over privacy concerns and that may be its downfall. I enjoy Facebook, for the most part, I have reconnected with some long lost friends I hadn’t seen in over 40 years. There are some Safari extensions for Facebook, they are very useful and I have made a monetary donation to Matt Kruse for his Better Facebook

   Actions geoduck said on September 3rd, 2010 at 11:09 AM (Edited: 01/26/2012 2:46 PM):

Interestingly it seems that on their end, Ping doesn’t block much of anything
Spammers Invade Ping

Ping is more taking on MySpace than Facebook with it’s Music theme.  I think Facebook should be working full steam to get Ping running.

   Actions Nemo said on September 3rd, 2010 at 11:34 AM (Edited: 04/06/2011 11:14 AM):

It is going to difficult, if not impossible, for Apple and Facebook to get to a deal, because the companies have fundamentally different views about privacy.  Facebook disregards privacy as an important value that it must honor, at least whenever it interferes with Facebook making a profit, while Apple regards privacy as right and that only the user can consent to abridging.  And, therefore, Apple requires that, when any third party or Apple wants to use a user’s private information, it disclose to that user, in language that any reasonable intelligent and educated layman can understand, what private information it wants to use and how it will use that information; that the user give his opt-in consent to third party or Apple obtaining and using his private information as set forth in the disclosure; that Apple or a third party make such a disclosure and obtain the user’s consent for each application, and that when the user ends the relationship with Apple or a third party, Apple or the third party delete all of the user’s personal/private information from its records or, if applicable law requires that the information be retained, Apple or the third party must sequester the user’s private/personal information and not use it for any purpose.  See Section 3.3.9 of the iOS SDK Agreement.

Facebook’s privacy policy is in language that even I find challenging to understand; it is a onetime, global grant of permission to use one’s personal/private information; it goes on and on to the point, where only the most determined reader would continue to the end and once at the end, won’t remember or understand what he read; after the flowery language in its preamble about how Facebook values its users’ privacy and protects it, Facebook’s privacy policy essentially lets Facebook use its users private information in anyway that will make profit for Facebook.

Though lawyers get paid for trying to find a way to compromise such difficult disputes, I don’t think Apple and Facebook will be able to bridge such a vast gap.  And while I personally find the privacy policies of Facebook and Google to be repugnant and indecent, and that Apple’s approach to privacy respects and protects a fundamental right, what is really important in this dispute is you, especially the younger members of the audience.  How do you value your privacy?  Do you think that even where your privacy is abridged, you should be the one to give his knowing consent to any such abridgment of your privacy?  I am told that younger folk don’t care much about privacy; that it doesn’t matter much to you.  Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg are constantly telling me that.  That what matters is being social and connected, and that privacy is an archaic and cheap sacrifice to the value of being connected 24/7 for free.  Well, over the years I’ve come to learn that nothing is free.  It is just a mater of how you pay, what you pay, and when you pay. 

Whether Apple ultimately prevails in its views on privacy or whether Apple’s approach to privacy is just the last stand of an old fart, Steve Jobs, will depend on you.  But let me give this admonition:  Privacy may seem to be of little value most of the time, because most of time most of us are just wonderful people, who don’t do evil, but at the moment when you need privacy to maintain your dignity, to be able to dissent in private, and to be who you truly are free from public scrutiny, it will be difficult and expensive to recover privacy, if it can be recovered.

   Actions Lee Dronick said on September 3rd, 2010 at 11:51 AM (Edited: 10/18/2011 6:20 PM):

Privacy may seem to be of little value most of the time, because most of time most of us are just wonderful people, who don’t do evil, but at the moment when you need privacy to maintain your dignity,

I have several young friends on Facebook, mostly family members, and I frequently being the old fart telling them to be careful with their posts. Someone has a photo of themselves and friends binge drinking with some text describing the spree. This will they are in midst of negotiating a divorce from her husband. If there is one thing I have learned over the years it is to be discreet with your indiscretions.

On Facebook I am mostly sharing photos I have taken, interesting and fun websites, movies we have recently seen, good cafes we have found and such.

I absolutely hate Apple and Steve Jobs.. Facebook sucks too, but Apple thinks Mr Jobs walks on water and can do whatever he wants.. Such arrogance from Apple.. It really is appalling.

Just buy Facebook, fire Zuckerberg and be done with it.

or you could just talk to your friends… just an idea

   Actions Lee Dronick said on September 3rd, 2010 at 12:02 PM (Edited: 10/18/2011 6:20 PM):

or you could just talk to your friends… just an idea

Many of my friends are quite a few timezones away.

Mrwirez says “I absolutely hate Apple and Steve Jobs.. Facebook sucks too, but Apple thinks Mr Jobs walks on water and can do whatever he wants.. Such arrogance from Apple.. It really is appalling.”

Very insightful. You give everyone something to think about. Now give mommy back her computer, dear.

   Actions Random Person said on September 3rd, 2010 at 12:09 PM:

he is a billionaire, not a millionaire… he is a lot smarter than you. so shut your face

   Actions Keith Richard Radford Jr said on September 3rd, 2010 at 12:30 PM:

I know that over the years judges and prosecuting attorneys were in a habit of forcing sodomy charges on plea bargaining defendants to further their push for more laws so they could get grants to continue to build their empire of sex related laws that have done nothing but built the foundation for a network of terror against people and start the movement that mirrors the Nazis terror activities that brought us the groups that millage around behind the hoards of members on web based social network sites like My Space/Facebook using people fired up over sex to the point that we now have a structure that is illegal and remembering that cable companies like CNN and their direct involvement with the FCC and other countries use of terror to start movements in other lands like Germany’s WW2 we know that Nazis thought socialism should control not only economics but breeding, religion & other intimate details of life, we have the same thing in it’s infancy here today.

Good on Facebook for not rolling over. Apple should have had an agreement in place before they even dreamed of using Facebook APIs.

   Actions geoduck said on September 3rd, 2010 at 12:36 PM (Edited: 01/26/2012 2:46 PM):

KRR Jr
Breathe dude.
Then look up the term run-on sentence.
Then this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/mapachtli/BloomCountyConstitutionals.jpg?1283535370

Does everyone really have so much free time to be on all these social networks?
Shut down the computer once in awhile and go out and do something, preferably not just something for yourself.

   Actions Brad Hutchings (Bosco) said on September 3rd, 2010 at 1:26 PM (Edited: 10/12/2011 8:04 PM):

I enjoy Facebook, for the most part, I have reconnected with some long lost friends I hadn’t seen in over 40 years.

In about 18 months that I’ve been on it, Facebook has helped me reconnect with a couple of great friends who I’d lost track of 20 years ago. Just knowing in an instant that they were alive and doing well provided far more joy to me than almost 25 years of using Macs ever did.  From time to time over the last 15 years, I’d try searching for them online, trying to figure out where their parents of siblings moved. Nothing.

Intuitively, that’s how I view Facebook’s value proposition. It has potential to reach individuals in a deeply meaningful way, far more meaningful than beautiful design or even the overtly pseudo-religious experience that I know many of you get from Apple. Apple, OTOH, wants to hook onto to Facebook’s social graph to sell music, a very laudable endeavor (no argument from me with that or for any other attempt at commerce), but it’s not as personal. Zuck may be in the generation that thanks to Facebook will probably never lose track of people they care about, but he gets that too and isn’t too troubled telling a guy who sells electronics in shiny aluminum to line up and kiss his ass like everyone else. It’s funny to me that Jobs was oblivious as to where he sits on the tech billionaire totem pole and just had to test it.

   Actions Lee Dronick said on September 3rd, 2010 at 1:39 PM (Edited: 10/18/2011 6:20 PM):

Breaking news! For those of who are not preachy Lisa Simpson types, but are Facebook users see this ArsTechnica article on Facebook security. It describes how you can check to see which computers have been used to access your account.

Apple needs Facebook’s social reach and acumen to cover their blindspots and outflank Google, by diminishing Google’s strengths (and revenue sources).

Facebook needs Apple to lock down mobile, and cement their undisputed position as the index/graph with the most chi.

Logic dictates that this is foreplay to something more enduring.

Facebook worked on Ping for the announcement of iTunes 10, and does not work now.  I seem to recall Flash worked on the maxiPad when it was announced and now it doesn’t function.

That Fascist-Dictator Cadaverous jobs likes to exaggerate all that rotten fruit crap and then when it is available to the public all of a sudden some things don’t function.

Screw jobs he sucks!

KRR Jr
Breathe dude.
Then look up the term run-on sentence.
Then this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/mapachtli/BloomCountyConstitutionals.jpg?1283535370

Gah! Stop feeding the trolls, they’ve come out in full force, and although it is mildly funny, if we’re not careful the TMO comment section will turn into one like MacRumors..

   Actions Lee Dronick said on September 4th, 2010 at 5:14 PM (Edited: 10/18/2011 6:20 PM):

f we’re not careful the TMO comment section will turn into one like MacRumors..

Or CNET which is worse. At least was worse, I stopped going there because of the flame wars, maybe they cleaned it up.

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