
An open source platform promoting universal data portability - dsr12
https://opensource.googleblog.com/2018/07/introducing-data-transfer-project.html
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auntad
This sounds like a big deal, but doesn't seem to be getting attention. Am I
missing something?

Giants like Facebook, Twitter, etc. have a huge competitive advantage because
of their user moats. There are a countless number of people who hate Facebook,
but stay on it "because everyone is there" and use the one or two convenient
features they appreciate, like Events or Groups.

If this initiative is for real, goodbye inferior products like all the stuff
Facebook has stuck into its ecosystem (Groups, Events, Messenger, etc etc) and
hello super-speciailized companies that can piggy-back on existing user moats
(moats no longer).

This is obviously fantastic for the consumer, but seems to destroy something
that I thought to be key to each of their bottom lines. Why are they doing
this?

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_bxg1
Google's motives tend to be just having as much data as possible so they can
draw powerful inferences from it, in contrast to Facebook which mainly values
exclusivity over their data. By playing the "good guy" card, Google:

\- Generally encourages more data to be out there and available

\- Pressures companies like Facebook to play along, weakening their data
strongholds, lest they be painted as the bad guys

\- Gets a lot of goodwill and, more importantly, user trust, which encourages
people to give them even more data

While Google's interests seem to align with consumer interests more often than
those of the other tech oligarchs, they don't do anything out of sheer good
will.

~~~
cube2222
Keep in mind, a huge company is also just a collection of people.

As far as I understood, this project is from the developers working on the
gdpr-originating user export functionality. Maybe they've just been passionate
about it and had a vision for a more user friendly solution and managed to
push it through somehow.

~~~
zimbatm
It's probably both. They managed to push it through because it aligns with the
higher-level company goals as well.

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dqv
I couldn't help but think _so this is how they 're going to merge_. I'm only
joking, of course. On one hand it has the potential to give users more
control...

But making it so that all the data is in a standardized format could also make
Facegoogtwitsoft easier to realize. That's not to say giving us our data is a
bad thing, just that I wonder if someone somewhere wanted to implement this
for a more nefarious reason.

~~~
severine
...and then President for Life nationalizes _it_ and extends his life until
all of us are dead, yeah, I couldn't help "joking" either. We might be sooo
doomed.

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qrbLPHiKpiux
The comments there are spot on.

