5 ms·

Show Us the Data. (It’s Ours, After All.)

57 points by eplanit 16y ago

sorbus 16y ago
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.
__david__ 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
corin_ 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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_ 16y ago
    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.
ra 16y ago
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.
acabal 16y ago
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 16y ago
  Why would writing a simple export feature set you back months? Sounds like something that could be done by one person in an afternoon.
  - epochwolf 16y ago
    Data export is not that easy. I've looked into it for my own project. You have to determine which database fields you need to include in the export, what format those fields should be in, and then format of the export. After you do all that, you need to code and test the export process. I estimated several days if not a week or two to get a workable system in place. Edit: This is for a Rails project. If it was PHP, I wouldn't even bother thinking about it.
jamesaguilar 16y ago
"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?

57 points by eplanit 16y ago

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.

__david__ 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.

corin_ 16y ago

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 16y ago
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_ 16y ago
  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.

ra 16y ago

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.

acabal 16y ago

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 16y ago
Why would writing a simple export feature set you back months? Sounds like something that could be done by one person in an afternoon.
- epochwolf 16y ago
  Data export is not that easy. I've looked into it for my own project. You have to determine which database fields you need to include in the export, what format those fields should be in, and then format of the export. After you do all that, you need to code and test the export process. I estimated several days if not a week or two to get a workable system in place. Edit: This is for a Rails project. If it was PHP, I wouldn't even bother thinking about it.

jamesaguilar 16y ago

"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?