Twitter severs Tumblr friend finder privileges

It seems twitter is out to cut any application that creates a lot of traffic via its friend finder feature off the teat. Not too long ago Twitter cut Instagram off from the friend finding service and now a second major service has been cut off by twitter. Blogging platform Tumblr has had its friend finding privileges ended by twitter.

New users signing up for Tumblr in the past were greeted with a sign-up page that allowed them to search for friends on the service using Facebook, Gmail, and twitter. That option to search for friends using twitter has now been removed. As you can see in the screenshot above, the only options for new users to search for friends are now via Facebook and Gmail.

Ending the ability for some services to use the friend finder feature via twitter has to do with new rules on the twitter version 1.1 API. Tumblr has officially confirmed that twitter restricted its ability to use the Find Twitter Friends feature on the Tumblr site. Tumblr noted that it was "truly disappointed by twitter's decision" and that it's "syndication features responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets."

Twitter had no further statement to make on cutting Tumblr off from the feature other than what it had offered when it cut Instagram off. The reality is twitter didn't offer any reason whatsoever for cutting off Instagram and simply noted that it understood there's great value in the service for Instagram and confirm that it was no longer available.

The official Tumblr statement reads, "To our dismay, Twitter has restricted our users' ability to "Find Twitter Friends" on Tumblr. Given our history of embracing their platform, this is especially upsetting. Our syndication feature is responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets, and we eagerly enabled Twitter Cards across 70 million blogs and 30 billion posts as one of Twitter's first partners. While we're delighted by the response to our integrations with Facebook and Gmail, we are truly disappointed by Twitter's decision."

[via TheNextWeb]