If you thought the trend toward openness among social networks was going to be sociable, the scuffle within Google and Facebook may indicate otherwise.

On Thursday, Facebook’s Charlie Cheever wrote on the company’s blog for developers that the company was suspending access to Facebook user knowledge by Google’s Friend Connect technology. Cheever said Facebook found that Friend Connect redistributes user data to other developers without users’ knowledge, and that both violates Facebook’s terms of service and the privacy of users.

He added that Facebook has “reached out to Google several times about that issue” and hopes to work with Google so users can determine precisely when, where and how much personal documents they want to share.

Google’s Option to Unlink

Facebook released its first API for external Web sites in August 2006, and it opened up the Web site when it launched the Facebook Platform in May 2007. Facebook Connect was announced last week, allowing users to

connect identity, friends and privacy settings amidst sites.

When a third-party site wants to add social networking, it can use Google’s Friend Connect and enable visitors to sign in. Users can use the sign-in credentials from either Google, Yahoo, AIM or an OpenID explanation. Users can indicate where they keep their social profile for such sites as Hi5, GTalk, Okrut and, until that week, Facebook. Users can next interact with the info of friends on the sites in Friend Connect.

Google has told news media that it offers an option to “unlink” a specific social-networking site, or to change which input is shared. The issue appears to be that a user can’t unlink or change goods from Facebook.com. Google says Facebook’s API doesn’t tell its site about the third-party site receiving the info, and it is in contact with Facebook about the issue.

But Google officials have plus…

Orginal post by Top Tech News