Control underlies Internet disconnect

Mountain View, Calif. -- The rift between two California high-tech giants, Facebook and Google, is about control of Internet users, industry analysts said.

Facebook abruptly disconnected from Google's new project, Friend Connect, three days after its launch, claiming they had not been briefed on Google's plan to share private information with third parties, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

But, the real deal was the potential billions of dollars at stake as relatively fenced-apart social networking Web sites evolve, analysts said.

Friend Connect is a step toward allowing social networking services to appear on many, if not most, Web sites. The move away from what is called "the walled garden" of isolated sites, such as Facebook, worried Facebook's executives, the Post reported.

"What Facebook is after really is control over their users,"

DataPortability.org founder Chris Saad told the Post.

There is, potentially, billions at stake. Based on Microsoft's purchase of 1.6 percent of Facebook last year for $240 million, Facebook, a 3 1/2 year old company, is worth $15 billion, the Post reported.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.