If you’re on FB and you friend me and you allow me to see your name and phone number, I can copy and paste it manually. What exactly are FB protecting you from? The people you’ve already trusted with your name and phone number?
FB are protecting you from your friends migrating away from FB. Right now that phone book and those pictures and those birthdays all act as a barrier to leaving FB. If it was easy for someone—who you have already trusted, remember—to download your name and phone number and birthday, they might leave and just call you on your birthday. Or send you an email.
FB has protected themselves. Which is their right, but given that the people you’ve trusted with your phone number can already copy and paste it, FB’s road blocks aren’t about your privacy, they’re about creating friction.
"If you’re on FB and you friend me and you allow me to see your name and phone number, I can copy and paste it manually."
At the time of the Scoble/Plaxo scraping thing, you couldn't copy and paste the phone number. IIRC, it was an image of text, to prevent it from being copied. It could only be transcribed at that time.
FB are protecting you from your friends migrating away from FB. Right now that phone book and those pictures and those birthdays all act as a barrier to leaving FB. If it was easy for someone—who you have already trusted, remember—to download your name and phone number and birthday, they might leave and just call you on your birthday. Or send you an email.
FB has protected themselves. Which is their right, but given that the people you’ve trusted with your phone number can already copy and paste it, FB’s road blocks aren’t about your privacy, they’re about creating friction.