Even though Facebook (News - Alert) and Google+ have only been competing with each other for two months, things have already gotten testy.
The latest brush up stemmed from Google's recent announcement that it will be incorporating games into Google (News 
- Alert)+ – a move that clearly emulates Facebook's business model.
To encourage developers to jump onboard, the Web behemoth is only charging third-party game makers a 5 percent transaction fee when users make in-app purchases. In contrast, Facebook takes a whopping 30 percent cut.
When asked about the disparity last week at an event, Facebook director of game partnerships Sean Ryan told Fortune's JP Mangalindan that "Google is at 5 percent because they don't have any users."
"Google has emulated aspects of our system, which is what they have the right to do," he added. "We just need to be better."
Ryan's comment is just one of many verbal jabs that have been thrown in this two-month old competition between rivals.
Just this week, Google suggested that the social networking giant is blocking Google+ invites that are shared via Facebook News Feeds.
Vic Gundotra, Google Senior Vice President of social business, posted a video on his Google+ account that explores this intriguing glitch. When Gundotra tries to send out Google+ invites using Facebook, the link doesn't end up finding its way to the News Feeds of his friends. Interestingly, the link does show up on his Facebook profile, making it appear as if it had been sent.
Facebook issued a swift denial, noting that its automated systems are programmed to identify and block spam when appropriate.
"Links have a history of the most abuse and are given the most scrutiny," Facebook said in a statement. "As a result of all of these factors, a given link may be shown or filtered to people differently at different times."
Facebook added that it has been unable to replicate the experience shown in Gundotra's video. Judging by the comments compiled by ZDNet, the issue affects some users, but not all.
Google may be correct to not completely trust Facebook. In mid-July, the company blocked a tool that allows users to export contact data from Facebook and import it to other Web clients, such as Google+.
Facebook said that it disabled the tool because it was in violation of the site's terms and conditions, but many have argued against that claim. The tool doesn’t mine email addresses directly from Facebook, it simply extracts the names and correlates them with data from a user's email account.
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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves
