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Facebook launched its Japanese-language version today and vision-questing, globe-trotting CEO Mark Zuckerberg magically appeared in the land of the rising sun to take reporters' questions. Among the queries: What's the deal with Facebook dropping Google Friend Connect, the search engine's new service that sucks data out of rival social networks? Zuck explained:

Part of the issue with Google's Friend Connect is that when users grant access to Google's product, Google might share their information with another application, or some part of it, maybe not all of it, without that user knowing. And part of what makes our system work is that people know exactly who they are sharing all their information with.

Then Zuckerberg said all this could have been avoided if Google had just talked to Facebook prior to launching Friend Connect. "They launched that without asking us or talking to us about it first so we had no choice but to follow the rules," Zuck said.

Funny thing is, Google claims an employee did talk to Facebook before launching the product. At least, according to Google engineering director David Glazer. No matter, said Zuck. "Google's a big player in the space and they make good things and our goal is to work with them to figure this out." Hear that Larry, Sergey? You guys make good things, so Mr. Zuckerberg will deign to speak with you. After he's done with his round-the-world trot.