Major Web players, so quick to be critical of the ‘closed’ telecom industry and its walled-garden approaches to services, are now turning to exactly the models it criticized -- even as they tout open user profiles and so-called data portability.

Maybe we all should have seen this coming. Screaming ‘open’ is a classic tactic for technology upstarts. But once tech companies have something big to lose -- market share, stock market value -- up go the walls to keep safe the advantages they’ve built and fend off encroaching competitors.

The latest flare-up came over the past few days and weeks as all three major Web social network players -- MySpace, Facebook and Google -- touted new approaches to sharing their user profile data. The names of the proposed offerings alone give you a sense of what’s up. Google came forward with “FriendConnect.” Facebook’s offering is “FacebookConnect.” MySpace is the less brand-friendly MySpace “DataAvailability.”

All seem to be about letting users share their data with other sites and each other more freely.

But in reality, they are all about establishing each of these individual companies and locations as the preferred provider of social networking capabilities for other sites -- and even more importantly to act as the de facto repository of social/profile information. And they are about keeping those users and their data within their walls -- i.e., their walled gardens. There was even a flare-up when Facebook said it wouldn’t open its walls up to Google due to some terms-of-service concerns. Yeah, right.

Writes social network expert Marc Canter: "They’re all keeping their members' data on their servers, while sending out tentacles to mesh in with as many outside sites as they can. These tentacles may be widgets, apps or iFrames - but it’s all the same strategy."

We haven’t written about social networks much lately; they seemed to have their day in the sun and then settled back in. But they seem to be in vogue again, especially as Microsoft mulls a second Yahoo acquisition offer and reportedly concerns making a bid for Facebook as well.

The search market battle seems conceded -- Google won. The battle for customer data and profiles is just beginning.

At issue is who “owns” the customer -- an idea that the "open Web" and "open mobile" seemed to squash, but which keeps coming back again. Telecom wireline and in particular wireless operators have strong customer relationships -- including billing relationships -- that Web players simply can’t match.

That’s why they criticize carrier decks and strategies as “walled” and shout that the mobile world needs to be more “open” -- quite frankly, they want in.

But be careful of that wolf in sheep’s clothing crying “open” when their real strategy is to ultimately lock their customers -- and as many of yours as they can get their hands on -- into a walled garden of their own creation.

E-mail me at rkarpinski@telephonyonline.com.