The industry momentum for data portability brotherhood hit a bump on Thursday when Facebook blocked Google's Friend Connect service from accessing Facebook members' data.

Friend Connect violates Facebook's terms of service because it "redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users' knowledge," Facebook official Charlie Cheever wrote on the company's blog for developers.

"Just as we've been forced to do for other applications that redistribute data in a way users might not expect or understand, we've had to suspend Friend Connect's access to Facebook user information until it comes into compliance," Cheever wrote.

Facebook has already contacted Google "several times" about the issue and is looking forward to finding a resolution, according to Cheever.

Friend Connect, Facebook Connect, and MySpace Data Availability are separate initiatives announced in the past week designed to let people reuse the content from their social network profiles in other sites.

The main idea behind this data portability concept is to save people from having to reenter into multiple sites common profile information such as their personal interests, list of friends, photos, video clips, blog postings, and the like.

However, none of the three initiatives even comes close to providing a broad data portability solution, although MySpace, Google, and Facebook have been commended by industry observers for at least taking some first steps to address the issue.

It's not a secret that data portability itself is a complicated matter to solve due to significant technical as well as commercial and operational challenges that surround it.

Thursday's move by Facebook highlights just one of the considerable obstacles for data portability: the different user-privacy policies and settings that exist among social networks and online service providers. These policies and settings need to be reconciled and harmonized in order for them to share and accept user data from each other.

Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about Facebook's decision to block Friend Connect.

CNET staffers are joking that CBS bought their company purely for the coveted News.com domain name. But nobody is complaining about the windfall.

"The scuttlebutt … around here is that News.com will be used for CBS' News operations and that our News.com will end up being a tab off that page," said one staffer, who asked not to be identified.

It's inconceivable that CBS paid a staggering $1.8 billion just for a domain name, but nonetheless, most of the reporters at News.com -- the tech news division of CNET -- are expecting that CBS will take the domain name for its own news operation, the staffer said.

"It does seem clear we will lose our domain name," the staffer said. "At least we have a parent that's solid and has some money -- and isn't News Corp."

Once the highflier of online media, CNET has recently been rocked by stock option scandals, hostile takeover attempts, layoffs and staff attrition. Skeleton crews run many departments and morale is low.

While CBS is seen as stodgy, the company is stable and has a solid reputation for supporting the expensive business of news.

Delighted rank and file are busy trying to tabulate the worth of their shares, which they've been told will all vest immediately.

CBS paid a premium $11.50 per share for CNET, a 44-percent premium above CNET's closing price yesterday.

"We feel it's pretty good news, and we're all pretty happy," said another employee at CNET who also asked not to be named. "It was a good price, and we're all going to make a bit of money off of it."

None of the staffers have yet been told CBS's plans but a company-wide meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, they said.

"Me personally, my initial reaction was 'Oh, fuck, corporate media is getting to us.'" said one CNET designer, who also asked not to be identified. "Every channel of communication in this country is owned by five or six companies, and we're joining that group … I just don't know if there's a way around that anymore."

But the designer said, generally, the staff welcomed the acquisition.

"The general feeling in the small talk going around is that this is a positive development," the designer said. "We're finally going to have some money behind us, because CNET has been hurting for the last couple of months. The first two quarters have been kind of hard, so I think this comes as good news, because obviously CBS is a big company that has a lot of capital."

"The mood is light. People are upbeat about it," said one staffer. "There's no worrying or anything. I think people think it's a good thing overall for the company."