Sudden Disconnect Over Social Networking Deal

Google's announcement of a service to "make the Web more social" was decidedly casual, or staged to seem that way. Engineering director David Glazer explained how, through an agreement with Facebook and similar sites, Google's effort would serve a primal human need. But within three days, a dispute erupted between Google and Facebook, its largest partner in the new service, that reflected the fact that for Web companies there is nothing casual about the business of Internet socializing: There's too much money, maybe billions, at stake. Facebook, the burgeoning social network, abruptly withdrew its support for Google's Friend Connect, meaning that none of Facebook's tens of millions of members could sign in to Web sites using Google's new service. Coming so soon after the highly publicized launch, it was an embarrassing rift for both sides. Many view the ongoing standoff as a contest with far-reaching implications for Web socializing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/02/AR200806...
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