Maybe we do not want to be on plaxo

Recently Robert Scoble was banned from facebook by a new plaxo script that would take all the contacts from facebook and shove them into plaxo. Plaxo has a complicated history, and people either love it or loath it, we fall into the loathing category because of its history. Most of that history around plaxo centers on annoyance ware, which for some is enough to keep folks from wanting to us it.

The interesting part of all this is that Roberts Data Portability freedom might just hook us up with requests to update our Plaxo account, which we don’t have and will not have. Roberts data portability now just became our annoyance because we have it in for plaxo.

OK, so I’ve been released from my NDA. I was alpha testing an upcoming feature of Plaxo Pulse — this feature has not yet been released and now that my account has gotten shut down it’s not clear whether it will be released. It is a Facebook importer that works just like any other address book importer. Source: Scobleizer

As a side note beyond the issues of what EU issues there are, there is a bigger issue here. What if the person who gave you contact information on one platform has a beef against some other platform. There is no informed consent, there is no way for us to tell robert not to use plaxo because we have issues with annoyance ware, and he is perfectly within his right to move his contact list where ever he wants to.

When do we get to decide what service we want to use, where does Roberts legally sanctioned and approved needs collide with ours and our legally sanctioned needs. The collision happened, we don’t want to loose Facebook contact, we do not want to have plaxo contact, facebook is enough to keep in touch, why add to the pain?

Makes for some good conversation over coffee, and while data portability is cool, all the rage, and wonderful, there are two people in the transaction, what does data portability do when both parties are not in agreement over what systems will be used?