At both Gmail and Facebook, the most common way someone new winds up in your 'contacts' is they send you a message, and you somehow 'ack' that you want to maintain a link to them. (Or vice-versa.) From that point on, your view includes the email address they freely volunteered to you. That's the info anyone should be able to export.
Facebook wanting to pretend that somehow, contact info shared between friends in their system can't go any further than Facebook is just a self-serving rationalization.
Now, you don't have to show your email addresses to any or all friends on Facebook -- it's part of the privacy controls. So naturally if I don't show it to certain people, those people shouldn't be able to export it. And it's a nice feature of Facebook that me changing my privacy settings, or de-friending someone, essentially recalls my email from their contacts, unless they took special steps to copy it elsewhere earlier.
But in the meantime, if I can see it, and copy & paste it, and use it to send messages, it's mine at that moment, even though Facebook may be holding it for me.
Facebook wanting to pretend that somehow, contact info shared between friends in their system can't go any further than Facebook is just a self-serving rationalization.
Now, you don't have to show your email addresses to any or all friends on Facebook -- it's part of the privacy controls. So naturally if I don't show it to certain people, those people shouldn't be able to export it. And it's a nice feature of Facebook that me changing my privacy settings, or de-friending someone, essentially recalls my email from their contacts, unless they took special steps to copy it elsewhere earlier.
But in the meantime, if I can see it, and copy & paste it, and use it to send messages, it's mine at that moment, even though Facebook may be holding it for me.