[joe_the_user]

Yes, let engage with this position. I claim it's conniving double-talk: "Email is different from social networking because in an email application, each person maintains and owns their own address book, whereas in a social network your friends maintain their information and you just maintain a list of friends. Because of this, we think it makes sense for email applications to export email addresses and for social networks to export friend lists."

Hmm, so the (arguable) implication first is that an email address are more personal than a friend-name. They're more like photos, somehow. So sharing these is a more personal thing than just sharing the name of a friend. But then, email program should still export email addresses? (why, 'cause it's an "email program"!) I suppose then, a photo sharing program should allow you to export your friends' photos where-ever too??

The whole idea of what's appropriate to share is ill-defined and nebulous but this particular effort to draw a line is just a hoot... "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana"