I like Robert Scoble’s most recent fight with Facebook over data portability that led to his account being disabled but don’t like how he went about starting it.

Scraping without permission is wrong. Sorry, yes, even scraping your own data from a third party site.

We’ve rallied in the past against how some websites devalue our time, using us to make them money (digg) and trying to handcuff us to the door by limiting export options (Facebook). One thing I’ve come to appreciate with Twitter is their API which when it’s working gives any Twitter user the ability to export just about everything you do there. Even if you think Twitter is stupid, it’s hard to argue against an open API like that.

The problem many have with Facebook is how easy it is to get information in there and how difficult it is to export. Go there, interact with your friends, but be careful what you do when leaving. They also insist that you must use your legal name, but only seem to apply that to non-popular people. If you’re not a web celebrity and not using your legal name, expect your account to be dropped.

Back to Scoble who decided to demo an unauthorized script from Plaxo that scraped his Facebook contact’s name, email address and birthdays which is against the Facebook terms of service (TOS). Facebook discovered the script running and promptly suspended Scoble’s FB account.

As I pointed out to him on Twitter, Scoble has a history of violating the TOS of other websites/services. I was disappointed to see from the many different bloggers writing about this on Techmeme so few pointing to Scoble’s history of openly admitting TOS violations. Are memories this short or is data portability more important than basic respect of agreements you make? When you agree to a EULA or TOS, you are making an agreement for how you’ll conduct yourself. Scoble makes these agreements and uses and evangelizes the services and then decides when he doesn’t like something it’s ok to violate it on principle because the company is wrong.

ScanIam remembers:

It’s very remeniscient of the time he let his underage son play in 2nd Life even after being told that it was against the rules.

1) hissy fit
2) apology
3) profit.

Steven Hodson also remembers when Scoble brought his son Patrick into the adult grid of Second Life? Whether or not we agree/disagree having a separate grid for adults and teens is a good idea that’s the agreement. While generally I think Scoble is a likeable human character, complete with imperfections like all of us, this is one side of Scoble that I don’t care for at all. He openly violates agreements because he doesn’t agree with them. He seems very wishy washy with his word. Take how he kept his Plaxo NDA under wraps until he “was released” and yet he doesn’t hesitate violating TOS?

Dare Obasanjo completely agrees with Facebook:

So if Facebook allows you to extract information about your Facebook friends via their APIs, why would Robert Scoble need to run a screen scraping script? The fact is that the information returned by the Facebook API about a user contains no contact information (no email address, no IM screen names, no telephone numbers, no street address). Thus if you are trying to “grow virally” by spamming the Facebook friend list of one of your new users about the benefits of your brand new Web 2.0 site then you have to screen scrape Facebook.

Now let’s read the Facebook Terms:

By using the Service or the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 13 or older and in high school or college, or else that you are 18 or older, and that you agree to and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

The ethical choice if Scoble disagrees with the TOS isn’t to openly violate and then use it as an opportunity to further promote himself and agenda even if that agenda is worthwhile. This is what Robin Hood did, right? He robbed from the rich (Facebook) and gave to the poor (the vast majority of Scoble’s gathered 4,999 contact names, emails and birthdays).

Nick Carr makes an excellent point about how Scoble may have thought this information was his, others may not feel the same way:

I have no doubt that Scoble didn’t mean any harm, but in what sense are names, email addresses, and birthdays not “personal information”? The important question isn’t what Scoble intended to do with the information. The important question is this: Will others who use such scraping scripts necessarily have benign intentions? And the answer is: No.

What Scoble did by allowing his teenage son into the adult grid of Second Life was neither professional or polite. He knew there was a teen grid and yet he intentionally allowed his son to use the adult grid and promoted this fact. He admitted he knew this was against the rules but he did it anyway.

And here he’s doing it all over again with this Facebook drama. Yes, he’s right that data portability is important, but he’s wrong to use sites/services where he openly disagrees with the TOS. And then when the company takes action against him, use it as a platform for self-promotion.

Scoble pointed me to opensocialweb.org as a response to if he approached Facebook directly before violating their TOS. The Open Social Web lays out the following principles:

Sites supporting these rights shall:

* Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
* Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
* Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
* Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.

These are noble guidelines and I agree with them all. However, because Facebook apparently doesn’t agree with these and has a TOS defining this as a violation the choice is clear: use the service and live with it or leave. Scoble decided he wanted to leave, but the caveat is he wanted to leave with the information he had already agreed to leave with them.

Wishy washy.

Don’t worry about Scoble’s squeaky wheel, it will get grease
Mark my words, Facebook will back down and reinstate his account not because he didn’t violate the TOS and deserve having his account suspended. Not because FB actually believes and supports data portability, but because it’s Robert Scoble going on CNBC and running off at the mouth about it.

Scoble gets my support for the fight for data portability, but he gets two thumbs way down for the tactics he’s employed.

Update 2:02pm PST: Predictably Facebook has already caved and reactivated Scoble’s account. They say it’s part of the normal appeals process and since Robert as agreed not to use a script like this again, that’s why they are reactivating his account.

2:34pm PST: Scoble held an impromptu live video with chat show/blogger press conference where he answered questions from the crowd using Mogulus. Good demo for their video and chat service actually.

I asked Scoble if he respected TOS and he responded by asking if I drive 55? Strange analogy considering I know he doesn’t drive by cops giving them the middle finger while speeding, but whatever.

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