Facebook is really the friend I love to hate! A report in Techcrunch Friday describes how the social networking giant is helping Orkut users move their profiles into Facebook.

Given that Google-owned Orkut has about a hundredth the size of Facebook’s traffic, you might wonder why Facebook is bothering. According to TC, Facebook is promoting its profile-transfer tool in the US in a move to consolidate its virtual monopoly.

Such heavy-handed maneuvering is reminiscent of another technology giant, Microsoft. (I have blogged before about the similarity between Facebook and Microsoft). Their fights with Google (who called Microsoft “evil”) are part of Internet history that continues to unfold. Will Facebook’s move provoke Google to open another chapter in that book? Give me a ringside seat!