Is there a Google Photos API?

Wouldn't the Facebook Graph API leak key information about users to its competitors (aka Google, Diaspora etc)?

• We have quite a bit of information about the logic of Facebook user IDs from the following Quora post. This in addition to the Graph API or perhaps FQL can help competitors of Facebook to easily get information of all users in pretty much a day or two. I agree the basic data just includes Facebook User ID, first name, middle name, last name, gender and profile picture, but just that should give the competitors a huge shot in the arm. Imagine when you sign up for Google's rumored social product (http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/16/details-on-the-google-social-layer-emerge/) the moment you register with your name, it knows your facebook profile, tries to get as much information from there and maybe for more information it could ask your permission to access the rest of your profile (maybe photos etc). If you want to know how the general public might view such a leak, look no further than the response to Ron Bowes' expose of about just 170 million FB users (http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/?p=887) Apart from sounding creepy, it actually takes out Facebook's strength - its users & their data and gives it out. This makes me wonder, why would Facebook do that to itself?

• Answer:

  The Pattern you describe is completly normal and ok. Its a nice idea but most likely to be very inefficient. If you are actually thinking of implementing it: Don't forget that names are only in combination with location and age (in the western world) somehow useful. Two counterarguments: By Facebook TOS you are not allowed to replicate the Social Graph of Facebook. You would not get anything from Graph you wouldnt get by classical Page scraping as well. Google basically backdoor'ed Social Graph Information with Google Profiles and also most noteable Gmail.