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The Data Transfer Project
- e9 8y agoThat looks pretty scary actually. If mishandled, it will enable someone to steal all of your information from all the platforms.
- d4l3k 8y agoI assume it requires credentials for each platform, so it doesn't enable anything that they wouldn't already have access to if they could log in to every single one of your accounts.
- c0p 8y agoIt requires credentials, but with a standard format/protocol it means extraction is easier for someone who might happen to acquire such credentials with nefarious intent.
- yumraj 8y agoThey should add a feature which allows me to delete my data from all the supported platforms.
- d4l3k 8y agoThat feature already exists for all the supported platforms. Google: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32046?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32046?hl=en Twitter: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-deactivate-twitter-account https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-dea... Microsoft: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12412/microsoft-account-how-to-close-account https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12412/microsoft-acc... Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/account/delete https://m.facebook.com/account/delete
- sinnoh 8y agoDid you read those links? He said to delete the data, not just the accounts.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jaimex2 8y agoWhat are the chances of Apple joining?
- scarface74 8y agoWhat data does Apple keep that would be worth transferring?
- d4l3k 8y agoiCloud has a lot of similar data to what Office 365/GSuite has, so there's probably a lot that would be worth transfering.
- navs 8y agoI'd be curious about LinkedIn actually.
- larkeith 8y agoLinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, so they may already be in.
- troymc 8y agoCalendar, Contacts, Photos, Mail...
- rdiddly 8y agoDupe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17574707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17574707 I must be pretty naive or I've been working with databases too long, but I seem to be in the minority on HN that's actually sort of excited about this project.
- larkeith 8y agoAs the web matures, I suspect better inter-service compatibility is necessary, and this potentially sets the stage for that. I'm optimistic for the future this lays the groundwork for, but am cautious with regards to this project specifically, simply due to the names involved; hopefully more FOSS leaders will become involved, or this version will become superseded by a later framework, as I do not trust the current members to design with sufficient privacy safeguards. On a side note, this will likely continue the trend of increasing the barrier to entry for more of the internet, hurting startups. Though that's dependant on how the framework is designed.
- d4l3k 8y agoI feel like this will actually lower the barrier to entry. Currently there's no easy way to migrate from the big 4 websites to other providers. If you were a new startup competitor, having to only implement one import format seems to be a good thing
- larkeith 8y agoThat's a really good point! I had been thinking of it in terms of something else a new service is expected to support before going live, but if they do support it it definitely should make it easier to get new users. I'd still be wary of it being overly complex and bloated, but if not it may be a boon in disguise.
- 5thbootloader 8y agoHow might this increase the barrier of entry? I would believe that if a transfer protocol was standardized, the startups could focus on innovating rather than convincing people to give up on software they've grown dependent on.
- joeblau 8y agoWhat data does Microsoft have that one would want to "transfer"?
- d4l3k 8y agoThe current "data models" appear to be Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Photos and Tasks. That fits pretty well with the data from Microsoft Office 365/GSuite. Interestingly enough it doesn't have a model for Tweets/Facebook posts so I'm not really sure those companies are part of this unless there's something more planned. https://github.com/google/data-transfer-project/tree/master/portability-types-transfer/src/main/java/org/datatransferproject/types/transfer/models https://github.com/google/data-transfer-project/tree/master/...
- joeblau 8y agoYou're the MVP for digging through that package list :). Thanks for the answer, I guess that I was thinking about the other three companies social media platforms and not necessarily the data you mentioned.
- rvense 8y agoAren't there already perfectly good interchange formats for all these?
- cududa 8y agoFormats, yes. But if you want to do a massive migration between g suite and o365 you’re solution is hire a vendor or write up some annoyingly complicated script to perform it
- cududa 8y agoPerhaps migrating between O365 and G apps (a nightmarish process I had the misfortune of experiencing earlier this year)
- kjeetgill 8y agoThey own LinkedIn. Disclaimer: I work for LinkedIn but have heard nothing about this.
- ghosterrific 8y agoSomething tells me they are afraid of Mastadon
- dotcoma 8y agoIs this done in the interest of users, or in the interest of the Big Data / Big Tech military-industrial complex ?
- anonytrary 8y agoProbably both -- not only is it more convenient for users to be able to swim between products, but having normalized and portable data is a godsend to anyone who needs to do data analysis. I'd imagine much more insight is possible when you can associate a user's activity on one platform to their activity on another. Imagine if your IP was shared between services; they'd know a lot more about you. On the surface, it sounds like a potential work around to GDPR.
- politician 8y agoSo, bwillard, a member of the DTP project team, answered some questions I had along those lines in quite a lot of detail earlier today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17577353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17577353
- troymc 8y agoProbably both, and also in the interest of GDPR compliance (e.g. the "right to data portability").
- lifeisstillgood 8y agoRecently the EU laid out the PSD2 - where banks MUST allow third party access to customers accounts / statements etc. The data transfer project is a small, glimmer of the same sort of thing - we own our data, and data providers MUST design themselves around that. Large data holders cannot live behind walled gardens for ever - specialist data analysers are going to spring up - some will offer budget planning for my accounts - others will track my twitter feed letting me know of things of interest - the news feed will be almost as much interest as my bank account - but overall, third party data wranglers are a good thing
- kyleperik 8y agoThis sounds odd. What's really the incentive for all of them behind this?
- tannhaeuser 8y agoI was going to post that exact question. It's also surprising they're using Java as modelling language.
- crazy_monkey 8y agoNSA might be behind this... They might already have this...
- larkeith 8y agoOff the top of my head: The pessimist in me says it's so each of them can create a more complete user profile for marketing, advertising, and tracking. My more optimist side says that Facebook, Google, MS, and Twitter are all tech giants filled people intimately familiar with the web and its immediate future, and the majority of them are genuinely trying to improve the internet. As usual, the answer probably includes both factors, and likely others.
- stevenicr 8y agoI am guessing self regulation to avoid Cali and Euro style for the people regulation. Also our monopolies can be ported easily so there is no need to call us a monopoly or keep mentioning things like make us a public utility that has to follow anyone's rules but our own. Some positive PR in the sea of "they are evil for this and that and that and..." - hey we're open. The GDPR thing has a mandate in it that personal data must be exportable doesn't it? So, two birds, one stone, add some positive PR. Just guessing.. Lets hope this doesn't turn out how G and Fb bragged about xmpp or whatever until they didn't need it any more and then your data and comms stopped being as interchangeable as it once was.
- tannhaeuser 8y agoI think the GDPR mandates that you can view your personal data, but doesn't require a specific format. I'd expect the motivation for this to be more like generating growth, or as a token initiative for data exchange standards.
- anonytrary 8y ago> The Data Transfer Project makes it easy for people to transfer their data between online services. We provide a common framework and ecosystem to accept contributions from service providers to enable seamless transfer of data into and out of their service. You use product A and B. You tell B it's OK to import data from A in order to "improve the quality of services of B" and similarly for A. Now A and B both have more insight on your personal preferences, so they both win. The user "wins" because they get "improved quality of services".
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoIt's not just more insight on your personal preferences. It's the 100% certainty that one user on two different platforms is the same person. It enables companies to trade and sell your data behind the scenes with much higher levels of reliability. For instance imagine there was another TangoTrotFox on Reddit or whatever, and AI parsing of his statements led to a strong overlap in self identifying statements, vernacular, etc. You still couldn't be 100% sure it was the same person and so collating data would not necessarily be as valuable for advertising companies as it might otherwise be. And yeah, I completely agree that this is a spot where the user "wins." Congrats, you get spammed with even more heavily targeted ads, political engineering, and more. What happy days.
- anonytrary 8y ago> It's not just more insight on your personal preferences. It's the 100% certainty that one user on two different platforms is the same person. That's what I was talking about, but thanks for explaining it to anyone who may have missed the point.
- politician 8y agoHey folks, a DTP team member responded to a lot of similar comments in the other thread from earlier today. Look for posts from bwillard. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17574707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17574707
- zouhair 8y agoWhere is the catch?
- 0xBA5ED 8y ago>We want all individuals across the web to be in control of their data. ...by having us control it for them. Seriously though, the more they repeat this line the less it convinces me. It simply isn't in their interest to give people _actual_ control over their data, so why would they?
- thg 8y ago> It simply isn't in their interest to give people _actual_ control over their data, so why would they? GDPR demands it and it's good PR.
- cududa 8y agoI think it’s a bit more nuanced - they’re all giving people a full copy of their data, but you can’t do much with that on say FB> Twitter. This to me smells like preemptive action against legislation. Sort of the companies choosing which limb or organ to give up instead of dictated by legislation