

Show Us the Data. (It’s Ours, After All.) - eplanit
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/business/24view.html?_r=1&ref=technology

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acabal
Sometimes I feel like the only person who doesn't think that data portability
is a right. After all, when you willingly hand over your data to a service,
say Facebook, you do so with the assumption that you've read their terms and
conditions, which probably don't include data portability in your favor.
You're exchanging your data for a service they provide--social networking--and
is it really your RIGHT to force the business to build special software to
then transform your data for export at your whim? Sure, it's icing on the cake
if they do so, but I really feel like calling it a "right" is somehow
demeaning the word. If you don't want your data stored in Google or FB's
servers, just don't use them--just as if you wouldn't use them if you didn't
agree with any other part of their TOS.

Take my own business, which is a social network for writers. Imagine someone
coming along one day and complaining about their right to export the writing
they've posted, and their personal profile, and hey, while we're at it, all of
their private messages in a nice XML hierarchy, and why not an annotated list
of the critiques they've written, because it's their data dammit! The cost to
develop that kind of system because someone has the idea in their head that
it's some kind of new-fangled digital Right-with-a-capital-R would put me
behind for months. Sure I'll delete your data if you leave, but if you don't
want my data stored on only my servers, then don't use my site.

Edit: This could easily be framed as a consumer-damaging argument. I suspect
that many of the people who support data portability "rights" are also the
sort of people who support anti-DRM campaigns (which I do too, for the
record). But if you have the right to demand your data back from a company at
any time, why shouldn't the company have the right to demand its own data back
from YOU--music, books, movies? Remember the fuss that happened with Amazon
deleted some people's purchased Kindle books--which is nothing but data a
consumer has licensed--from their devices without warning?

~~~
sounddust
Why would writing a simple export feature set you back months? Sounds like
something that could be done by one person in an afternoon.

~~~
acabal
Not to mention the need to set up the actual page layout, markup, and related
code... this is a PHP app so it's not that easy. Since I'm the only
developer/everything else guy, my time has to be split between customer
support, development of cashflow-generating features, and everything else
needed to run a business. Maybe you're the "check out the Turing-test-passing
AI I developed in a weekend" kind of programmer, but I'm not that good :)

~~~
derefr
I don't know about you, but if the requirement is simply "give me my data if I
ask," I'm going to do as _little_ as possible to get them that data, and then
let them do what they wish with it from there—if it's not in a format they
understand, then let them hire a third-party to write a converter; that's not
my job. In this case, I think I'd just expose a single API endpoint that just
spat out SQL dump statements.

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sorbus
This is a really good idea, but it seems somewhat unlikely to happen in the
USA - not least because of how valuable that information is. It's not just
something that's used by individual companies, it's something that they can
trade and sell. Giving consumers the ability to take their data from one
company and give it to another (in exchange for a discount, perhaps? Someone
would definitely try that) would have the potential to cut into the profits of
companies, and so I would expect them to lobby against it.

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ra
Recently NSW government and DataNSW sponsored a hack day where the government
provided tonnes of new data for the development of apps, including live city
bus location.

This particular dataset was very popular, and many of the participants chose
to spend their time building apps about buses.

The next day the state repealed access to the data with no plans for it's
future availability, thereby wasting the time of the event organisers and
participants.

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jamesaguilar
"Show me the picture you took of me on the street. It's mine, after all." How
is this transparently foolish demand different from the one in the article?

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__david__
This is one reason I like Netflix. It keeps track of every movie you've
watches and which you've rated. It makes me less likely to switch should
another competitor come along. If my supermarket gave me access to all the
junk I'd ever bought from them I'd have much less of a reason to shop around--
the data is much too useful to abandon once you've built up enough if it.

~~~
billybob
Good point. Although a your grocery shopping data, for example, wouldn't be as
hard to replace; shop at a new store for 2 months and you've probably
purchased all the same stuff again.

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corin_
If recent experiences are anything to go by (I'm thinking stuff like Startup
Britain, 2010 DEA, etc.) then while this might be a nice idea in theory, by
the time it becomes law it will be a depressing reminder of how badly our
governement deals with anything technology-related.

~~~
forkandwait
Umm, please spare us the kneejerk anti-government rhetoric. Governments
sometime have resounding failures and resounding successes, but it isn't the
fact that a government is the agent or not.

~~~
corin_
I'm being anti- UK politicians, not anti-government (perhaps you meant them as
one and the same, but if you're not from the UK, then over here "government"
can refer to just the party(ies) in power).

My issue isn't with the current government, after all the DEA passed just
before the last general election.

But I don't see what's wrong with having the opinion that, if a group of
politicians have shown incompetance in technology issues, to not have any
faith in them until such a time as they buck the trend and show that they can
do good too. It's not kneejerk at all, if a company or an individual person
were to screw up multiple things in one area I'd think exactly the same of
them.

