Exclusive: Facebook Blocked API Access to Ping After Failure to Strike Agreement, So Apple Removed Feature After Launch | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD
Kara Swisher reports that Apple/Facebook deal fell apart just as the Ping announcement was being made:
According to sources familiar with Facebook’s platform, the social networking giant essentially denied Apple’s Ping access to application programming interfaces that would allow it to search for an iTunes user’s friends on Facebook who also had signed up for Ping. Normally, this API access is open and does not require permission. That is, unless some entity wants to access it a lot. In that case, Facebook requires an agreement for reasons primarily centered on protection of Facebook user data and, of course, infrastructure impact. With 160 million iTunes users, that could mean a possibility of a lot of impact. Sources said Apple (AAPL) and Facebook conducted negotiations about an agreement, but could not come to terms. At the launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs complained to me about what he called “onerous terms” that Facebook had demanded for the friends connection and suggested using search or email to add friends to Ping.
I don’t blame Facebook for balking, since Ping is going to pull a lot of traffic.
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Social anthropologist, clairvoyant, postfuturist.
