What began as a three-way competition between Google, MySpace and Facebook over data portability appears to have escalated into something of a war between two of the web's leading companies.

The battle began late yesterday when Facebook, which had piled on with its own data portability project just days after MySpace and then Google announced similar plans, claimed that Google had violated its internal terms of service.

"Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we've had a chance to evaluate the technology," the post by Facebook employee Charlie Cheever read. "We've found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users' knowledge, which doesn't respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our terms of service."

Facebook's refusal to participate in Google's Friend Connect now means that its users would need to manually opt-in to the program, and they would not be able to control their data that is disseminated to third-party sites through a Google interface.

Though Facebook couched its objections around privacy considerations, few industry watchers see it that way, especially in light of Facebook's Beacon fiasco last fall.

"The scuffle today between Facebook and Google has very little to do with user privacy and everything to do with user control," TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington wrote. "A huge battle is underway between Google, MySpace and Facebook around control of user profiles and, therefore, users themselves." 
 
But Facebook stuck to its guns, when Chris Kelly, the company's chief privacy officer, told CNET that its "terms of service, for privacy reasons, have always forbidden redistribution of other Facebook information."

Kelly added that Facebook never had a formal partnership with Google's Friend Connect, saying, "There wasn't participation to start with. That was sort of a mis-impression that may have been formed by their release. We weren't briefed on how the Friend Connect product was going to work."

But that didn't sit well with David Glazer, Google's director of engineering.

"It's a very simple issue," Glazer said. "We think that users should be in control of their data," Glazer said. "We think that Friend Connect at all steps puts users in control of their own data, at every step of the way, and we're disappointed that Facebook disabled their users' ability to use Friend Connect with their Facebook friends. It's that simple."

While neither MySpace, Google or Facebook can claim any kind of moral high ground in terms of protecting users, what is apparent is that three companies appear to be locked in a struggle for control of a more fluid web.

Each company is proposing itself as a kind of digital hub where users can update and manage their information across the web, and it's easy to see the value of serving that need. But before that can happen, their will need to be a fully interoperable system for managing and updating that data.

When MySpace announced its data portability project, CEO Chris DeWolfe did so with the support of partners like Yahoo, eBay, Photobucket and Twitter, and when a reporter asked him if Facebook would be a partner soon, he said they would welcome their rival's participation. That response drew chuckles from those on the conference call, prompting many to believe that the three companies could be in for a very long fight for control over the next iteration of the internet.