

Larry Page: “We’re still waiting” for Facebook to unlock user data - wyclif
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/larry-page-on-charlie-rose-were-still-waiting-for-facebook-to-unlock-user-data/

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idspispopd
While I am fully expecting this to be buried (as google is much fawned over.)
I'll persist and point out the hypocrisy that I see between how Google paints
their competitors and Google's own behaviour.

The first hypocrisy is the idea of 'Openness', Google often describes their
competitors customers as 'hostage' when they won't allow Google access into
their system, or 'walled' because they use a closed model. However there is
nothing preventing Google from allowing facebook to access Google's data,
merely stating reciprocity isn't a reason to keep their own customers
'hostage'. It's simple business, Google wants there to be no competitive
advantage. Facebook is significantly larger than Google+, meaning that sharing
data will always be in Google's favour. This is why Larry talks it up, not
because he's much concerned about users being held 'hostage', but rather he
wants an easy way to leech users from facebook into Google+

Next is the idea of 'choice', Google often paints their competitors as giving
their users less choice. However when it's convenient for Google's business
model, choice is eradicated - between Google's online services and Android
users are funnelled into google's services above all others. A trivial example
is search where YouTube is highlighted, while 'video' is relegated to the last
menu option under 'more'. (YouTube mobile and webm is another example of this
leveraging.)

Another often touted soundbite is that Google is all about being truthful,
again implying that their competitors blind or mislead their customers to keep
them loyal. However Larry would know perfectly well that Chrome's recent
ascent to largest market share is a side effect of pre-loading pages, and not
representative of actual use. However it's convenient for Google to claim
victory here rather than represent actual web use, which sadly appears to
still be well within the dominance of IE.

The point I'm making is that Google spends a lot of time trashing it's
competitors for doing the exact same things that Google themselves are doing.
The only difference is that the competitors aren't sanctimonious by holding up
virtues that they can't legitimately claim.

~~~
mysteryleo
I wish google would let me crawl blogger pages for my index. I don't think
that is fair that google can index the web, but has created a walled garden
for the content they host.

Basically, if you start indexing the web, and some sites are hosted in
blogger, google will block your crawler if I remember correctly

~~~
abraham
What are you talking about? The only aspect of Blogger that is robot
restricted are the search pages (as they should be).

<http://googleblog.blogspot.com/robots.txt>

~~~
mysteryleo
Talking about this

[http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86640)

There other ways of blocking crawlers other than robots.txt

------
ajays
There'll probably come a time when the Congress will get involved, and mandate
that any personal data that was provided by the user should be transferable to
another server upon the user's request. Sorta like number portability.

~~~
waterlesscloud
That sounds like one of the most awful ideas I've ever heard.

~~~
masklinn
Because it prevents lock-in? How's that awful?

~~~
tolmasky
Right off the top of my head, having given it literally 5 minutes of thought:

If it were implemented as a "convenient" export button, then it would offer a
"convenient" way to easily steal _all_ your data. Leave your computer for a
second or accidentally forget to log off at the library or apple store? Anyone
can come in and download your entire history and pictures and chat logs and
who knows what else.

"that's not realistic because it would take too long" or "just ask for
password again when you export". OK, but now you've made it even more enticing
to steal someone's password since you've created a super easy vector to then
gain access to all their info, possibly nicely organized as well. In this
sense its kind of nice that its pretty difficult to get old info off of
facebook currently.

Secondly, what counts as social network data and what doesn't? Should amazon
be forced to provide you with an export of all your purchases so that another
web store can offer you as good suggestions and prevent lock-in to amazon?
Arguably amazon (or any web store) has already proven to better use this data,
and it's as real or more real than facebooks data. How about my Starcraft
stats and battle.net chat logs? I know, let's have a long series of
litigations to figure this out, in the meanwhile creating a scary and perhaps
prohibitively expensive proposition to _any_ new startup that plans to use
your prior behavior/data to enhance your future experience.

~~~
isaacaggrey
> Leave your computer for a second or accidentally forget to log off at the
> library or apple store?

If you left your computer, then you have bigger issues to worry about (i.e.,
it being stolen, searching through your emails for CC info, etc). In other
words, the malicious use of an export button is no bigger of a problem than it
already is to leave your belongings unattended in a public space.

> But now you've made it even more enticing to steal someone's password

It is already enticing to steal someone's password because more often than not
people use the same password across services anyway.

I can see where you're coming from on your second point, but I'm of the
opinion I should be able to take the data I'm putting into a service (reviews,
chats, messages, etc) with me -- it doesn't prevent the service from still
monetizing that data (through ads, suggested products, etc), and if anything
it continues to give the service an incentive to make their platform better so
I would want to stick around with them only because of their superior
recommendations and whatnot.

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twelvechairs
Obviously none of the existing comments in this thread have bothered to read
the link. All that is really behind the headline is Page saying that users
should be allowed to export their data to another service easily if they want
to, not that google wants to index all facebook data...

~~~
draggnar
I watched the entire interview last night and you are absolutely incorrect.
Google absolutely wants to index all of Facebook's data, and used the
repricosity idea as an example to frame it as a philosophical debate between
openness and walled gardens.

Larry Page said repeatedly the future of search, the next step, is learning
about you. You personally and how when you search for "Ted Smith" the results
show the results relevant to the Ted Smith you are connected to.

There would be huge benefits to having all Facebook data searchable by Google,
but the issue is privacy and whether people should have the choice to keep
this information separate. The debate is both for a business one for the
companies involved and a philosophical one.

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muyuu
Speaking about not keeping users hostage, I'd suggest Page to stop forcing
Android users to do a FACTORY RESET in order to log off from their Google
account.

Burnt me pretty badly when I lost all my apps.

~~~
magicalist
I've never tried it, but on my phone you just select the account in settings
and in the menu is "remove account". Does that force a reset when you select
it?

Edit: it appears this might have been added in Ice Cream Sandwich, but I can't
find mention of it as a new feature, just people recommending the upgrade to
avoid the reset.

~~~
muyuu
Yep, it's sneaky too.

It appears as an option so you'd assume it just does it, but when you go ahead
and try it, it's just a friendly message telling you that you actually need to
do a factory reset and a friendly warning that you will lose all your
information and installed applications. There are ways - 3rd party apps - to
easily restore/backup app lists but you usually lose any app information you
had there, like hiscores or contacts for instance, and of course paid apps.

Google social engineering at its best.

~~~
fpgeek
Wait a minute. The apps you've downloaded from the Android Market / Play Store
are associated with a Google account. If you log off of that Google account
you should lose _everything_ associated with that account - including apps
you've downloaded. Logging off wouldn't be complete otherwise.

Plus you have to lose all of data stored in any non-downloaded Google apps,
for the same reason. There are a few things left (e.g. alarms and the non-
Gmail email app), but I think it is entirely reasonable that Google didn't
spend a lot of effort on that corner-case - especially since the main privacy
risk is an incomplete log off that leaves behind something it shouldn't.

~~~
muyuu
An association I don't ask for, and I'm willing to waive in order to keep my
apps physically in my device. Note that these are largely non-DRM apps.

But wait, there's more. They also delete the contacts, both those stored in
the account (those, understandably) and those stored in the phone. Did I
mention they force a FACTORY RESET? call logs, notes, saved app data, you get
the idea.

If you root your phone you can solve this, and even without rooting there are
still hacks to avoid the deletion, proving that this is perfectly possible.
But Google prefers to make it a DESTRUCTIVE thing for you to try and
circumvent being tracked at all times.

It's not a corner case. A lot of us don't want to be tracked at all times.

~~~
fpgeek
But now you're asking Google to intuit which bits of privacy you want (no
Google app data) and which you don't (non-Google apps associated with your
Google account are ok).

What about non-Google apps that use Google services / APIs on your behalf?
What about apps that were non-Google when you downloaded them but were later
bought by Google? And on and on.

Plus, other people are going to draw the line in different places. Should
Google present a giant switchboard where you can decide exactly what to keep
and what to get rid of? I feel sure that if they had, someone else would be
here talking about Google's "social engineering" because they make the process
of deactivating your Google account on an Android device so complicated.

The overwhelmingly commonest case for deactivating the primary Google account
on an Android device is because you're giving that device to someone else. In
that case you almost always actively want a factory reset. It is entirely
reasonable for Google to keep things simple and optimize for that.

In most other cases, the data (not apps) you're talking about is either backed
up to your Google account and/or can be straightforwardly backed up another
way (e.g. apps letting you export to the SD card, emailing yourself notes,
etc.). Dealing with those sorts of issues in your corner case isn't an
unreasonable burden (contrast this with the Facebook situation, where almost
everyone exporting their contacts from Facebook wants the email addresses,
too).

~~~
muyuu
No.

It's pretty simple really. I just want them to let me delete the account and
just the account, leaving my stuff alone and destroying nothing. Just like it
happens when you do it with a rooted device.

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skarayan
The problem here is that the whole security model is upside down. No one else
should see or have access to my data.

I am sure that Congress could eventually interfere and set certain rules
around the handling of personal data, but more likely, we will soon start
seeing alternate technical solutions which puts each user's data in that
specific user's hands.

There will come a time when it will not be ethical for companies to store un-
encrypted personal data.

~~~
josefonseca
> The problem here is that the whole security model is upside down.

I had to scroll two screens down to find your comment.

At some point Google and Facebook(and everyone else, these two are just the
most popular right now) inverted the rules. Years ago it was completely
unacceptable for any piece of software to mine any piece of data without your
consent. Screens had to be shown explicitly "do you authorize we contact
server X in order to send data Y?"

Fast forward a few years and these companies are out there providing
Javascript libraries that are essentially urchins on every web page. Every web
site which uses Google gadgets for example, like maps or adsense or whatever
is giving their visitor's client data to Google - screen resolution, IP
address, web browser used, allows them to set tracking cookies, etc.... Same
with Facebook javascript gadgets. Since when is this OK?

This would have been completely unacceptable a few years ago but somewhere it
got lost. Now it's not only ok for Google and Facebook to track you
everywhere, it also seems to be OK to FIGHT over having access to even more
data!

The whole privacy thing has been turned upside down. These people are not
fighting for our privacy, they are fighting over who gets to access MORE of
our personal data.

~~~
skarayan
The problem is that showing explicit screens and granting authorization and
doing all this stuff manually is not a viable solution. I think it is natural
that companies won't do this, specially when they make tons of money from the
current model.

Privacy needs to be baked into the internet. This is more central to human
needs than a google search or facebook connection. People are doing what is
easy and using these services, but once a true privacy service comes up
neither Larry/Sergey or Zuch will know how to respond. This will likely be
outside of their mental framework and new privacy centric companies will
emerge.

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conradfr
I'm still waiting for Google to explain to me why they banned me from adsense
and stole my money.

------
sytelus
FB does allow you to export your data:

1\. Go to Accounts Settings in Facebook. 2\. Find a link "Download a copy of
your Facebook data".

Data includes all your wall posts, photos and friends names plus their email
addresses.

~~~
joe_the_user
Email Addresses?

Really?

Those were removed for quite a while. If they're available now, it's kind of a
big deal.

~~~
Jakegissing
If the friends has their email address viewable on their profile then yes.
Makes sense.

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zerostar07
Hopefully, an open source (and open-data) alternative will come along and we
won't have to wait anymore. Not that these data need to be accessible by
google anyway.

~~~
fungi
There are for the most part viable open and closed alternatives to facebook...
we just need to overcome facebooks socially enforced vendor lockin

~~~
zerostar07
I doubt any of them are good enough to sustain the enormous traffic that
facebook carries. I believe their amazing infrastucture is the #1 asset of
facebook right now.

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tuke
We're still waiting for Facebook to unlock user data . . . so we can index it
and exploit it.

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mark_l_watson
Question:

Google makes data available through the (roughly) 27 APIs, but a lot of them
would be expensive to use on a large scale.

Does Google expect FB to provide user data for free or very low cost, or are
they offering real money?

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gojomo
I suspect that may arrive around the same time Google lets people export the
full history of every search and click from their browsers (as recorded by not
just search but google+, analytics, adsense, etc.).

~~~
abrahamsen
<http://www.google.com/history>

~~~
gojomo
(1) The exportable RSS format is only 'recent', with 'recent' undefined. (In
my URL-tampering, I can get about 1 month's data in the exportable format.
Unsure if I'm hitting a time or item limit.)

(2) There's no way to get my tracked clicktrails as collected by other Google
properties (analytics, adsense, G+, etc.)

Related, but going beyond my original point: Google is also unlikely to ever
allow exporting all the signals about me they've collected, and are now using
to 'personalize' search results. Fine, they're protecting the proprietary
advantage they've built up, with my acquiescence, over time. But so is
Facebook.

~~~
magicalist
In addition to what icebraining said, analytics and adsense aren't associated
with your account. Adsense (which uses the doubleclick cookie) actually
_can't_ be associated with your account under Google's agreement to acquire
doubleclick. That's why the ads preferences page is somewhat off base for most
people and is empty if you clear or block the cookie or view the page in
incognito mode.

I wish people would read privacy policies before they're critical of them...

~~~
gojomo
It doesn't matter to me that they can't link the click data with my Google
account due to the arbitrary rules of prior agreements. They're collecting it;
they're using it; they should let me have it -- simply by me providing the
cookie that they're using as the master key, even if that's not my Google
account.

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chj
I'm still waiting for Google to stop asking for my mobile numbers.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Your mobile number helps Google keep your account from getting hijacked.
Criminals are very keen to hijack the accounts of Google users, and if you
have enrolled your mobile number it's vastly more difficult.

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cooldeal
Interesting, when Bing used click data(only search term and link that was
clicked) from the Bing bar users who gave permission to do it, Google raised a
big fuss about it.

But now, the user data belongs to the user and not Facebook and they want to
access it.

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btian
I suggest Larry read T&C of Facebook.

~~~
abrahamsen
Is that where they say that Facebook contact information may be exported to
yahoo and hotmail, but not to gmail?

~~~
esolyt
In fact, the only way I was able to import my Facebook contacts before closing
my Facebook account was to import them to a temporary Yahoo account first.

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romeodelight
So Google can index and put ads on them? I'm moving away from Google's
services and I don't want them accessing my user data.

~~~
mayanksinghal
As compared to Facebook that will index and put ads on them. There is no
lesser evil here - not in principle at least. All firms seem to be in the same
business of selling advertisements. Facebook might be able to do better
display advertisements as compared to Google and they seem less intrusive to
users - a viewpoint that I subscribe to. But other than the extent of
intrusion, both Facebook and Google are using the data you provide for
targeted advertisements.

[Edit: Typos]

~~~
sriramk
This isn't a judgement on ads. This goes to whether I can move networks if I
choose to.

~~~
mayanksinghal
And with that, I agree. Actually FB is providing some level of data movement.
I was just replying to my parent comment that was indicating that data should
be not be given to Google but to FB because the former will put ads on it.

