6 ms·

Why You Should Think Twice About Opting-In to the Delicious-AVOS Transfer

78 points by samoa 15y ago

dlsspy 15y ago
I only thought once. The del.icio.us API would allow them to grab pretty much all of it anyway. I've already migrated mine out to a couchdb-based clone: http://xlson.com/2011/01/13/out-off-delicious-and-into-your-couch.html http://xlson.com/2011/01/13/out-off-delicious-and-into-your-... This has the nice benefits of always being local and being impossible to take away from me. :) (well, I did break my couchdb build with an experimental branch on an experimental OS, but I'll sort that out later)
- joshu 15y ago
  The API does not give access to other people's accounts.
  - eli 15y ago
    Yeah, but I don't get to decide what terms other people opt-in to either.
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  Cool. I made a web-based pinboard-ish clone instead. http://yukmarks.com http://yukmarks.com (Not that anyone will sign up, but if you do, it's mostly just personal tool that isn't exactly full-featured. To wit: Don't forget your password.) It's pure Python built around Django. It's a super thin wrapper over a postgres db. It's honestly little more than a web interface for the database. If anyone wants to make their own, all the code is here: https://github.com/mattdeboard/Yuk https://github.com/mattdeboard/Yuk
ares2012 15y ago
Sounds like fear mongering. There aren't any terms in there that you won't find on other sites that allow users to post content. The company is protecting itself from misuse in a way that might not have been necessary when the Delicious service first launched in the early days of Web 2.0.
- jshen 15y ago
  I don't think so. I had my flickr account deleted without warning for posting pictures of Abu ghraib abuses, and they weren't the worst pictures either.
- pyre 15y ago
  > The company is protecting itself from misuse No. They are re-defining what the term 'misuse' means (from one agreement to the next). If posting 'obscene' links is not forbidden, then how is it a 'misuse' of the system? Also, this is the same argument that gets used by large tech companies like Microsoft for building their patent portfolios. It's 'only for defense,' so long as there is no reason to use if offensively. Would you allow the government to put CCTV cameras inside of your home so long as their promised to only use them in case someone breaks into your home (as evidence in a trial)? Once they were installed, and their 'foot is in the door,' how long do you think it will be before that usage is expanded beyond the original promise through a series a baby steps? Overly broad legal wording as a 'defensive' move is a cancer on our society.
  - pstack 15y ago
    No, I agree with the fear-mongering. I guess the author needed to fill article space, this week. I'm a privacy-nut type of person and I hate restrictive and absurd licenses. I'm a fan of telling the man to eat it. Note that I'm not justifying restrictive or broad legal agreements, either. I think it's stupid. I just don't think it's any more stupid than similar agreements for similar sites that provide similar services that most of you (including the author of that article) already use every day. However, I don't see anything in the agreement that you wouldn't normally see on any other social networking site. Unlike some other online bookmarking services, Delicious is a social-networking/bookmarking service, which would explain the concern over content and age and so on. It would perturb me if I was having to agree with something like that for a service which was only me saving bookmarks with comments and tags for my own use that only I would see or access via my own account for myself, but that isn't what Delicious has turned into. Very possibly, they may have even bigger "social networking" ambitions for the service after the purchase, which may further necessitate such stringent clauses. Besides, if one cared much about that sort of thing, chances are that they wouldn't stop using Delicious now, because they would have already stopped using Delicious when Yahoo! bought them, for similar concerns over privacy and agreements.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- merloen 15y ago
  Those are the old terms.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    My bad, deleted my comment. Assumed that "Current (and about to be former)" meant that they were putting former into the brackets (so in that quoted bit it was just a "..." that was removed) and that their bold was showing the new text.
    - dhimes 15y ago
      Please don't delete comments. It fucks up reading the thread. Thanks.
eli 15y ago
I think it's a good question to ask AVOS. It could well just be broilerplate legalese. That said, it's quite easy to backup your Delicious links. Probably a good idea to do that regularly regardless of the terms.
giberson 15y ago
While the policy change does fundamentally allow the company to determine what content to keep and to remove I'm not sure how that provides you with a valid concern about opting in your data for the transfer. IE, if you don't opt in you're basically self censoring yourself as none of the data will get used. If you do opt in, then the majority of it may remain [or be stricken depending on the content you favored bookmarking]. Rather your statement should read "Think twice about opting-out of the delicious-avos transfer. If you opt out then NONE of your data will be kept".
- cracki 15y ago
  The issue is control and safety. I expect my bookmarks to be complete, to not disappear silently and randomly. I'd rather build my own little bookmarking system on a LAMP server (I will probably do that) than subject my digital life to a company that threatens to cut holes in it.
cracki 15y ago
sweet little command to dump your delicious bookmarks (copied/stolen from the Scrumptious setup guide): curl -u <user>[:<pass>] -o mine.xml https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/all That's now running hourly on my computer. I'll write myself a "loss check" too, to see if any of my "questionable" (private) bookmarks start disappearing.
- realityloop 15y ago
  unfortunately this currently returns: <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> <result code="api temporarily unavailable" />
mahrain 15y ago
It sure seems like the new South Park episode got people to read terms and conditions ;-)

78 points by samoa 15y ago

I only thought once. The del.icio.us API would allow them to grab pretty much all of it anyway. I've already migrated mine out to a couchdb-based clone: http://xlson.com/2011/01/13/out-off-delicious-and-into-your-couch.html http://xlson.com/2011/01/13/out-off-delicious-and-into-your-... This has the nice benefits of always being local and being impossible to take away from me. :) (well, I did break my couchdb build with an experimental branch on an experimental OS, but I'll sort that out later)

joshu 15y ago
The API does not give access to other people's accounts.
- eli 15y ago
  Yeah, but I don't get to decide what terms other people opt-in to either.
mattdeboard 15y ago
Cool. I made a web-based pinboard-ish clone instead. http://yukmarks.com http://yukmarks.com (Not that anyone will sign up, but if you do, it's mostly just personal tool that isn't exactly full-featured. To wit: Don't forget your password.) It's pure Python built around Django. It's a super thin wrapper over a postgres db. It's honestly little more than a web interface for the database. If anyone wants to make their own, all the code is here: https://github.com/mattdeboard/Yuk https://github.com/mattdeboard/Yuk

ares2012 15y ago

Sounds like fear mongering. There aren't any terms in there that you won't find on other sites that allow users to post content. The company is protecting itself from misuse in a way that might not have been necessary when the Delicious service first launched in the early days of Web 2.0.

jshen 15y ago
I don't think so. I had my flickr account deleted without warning for posting pictures of Abu ghraib abuses, and they weren't the worst pictures either.
pyre 15y ago
> The company is protecting itself from misuse No. They are re-defining what the term 'misuse' means (from one agreement to the next). If posting 'obscene' links is not forbidden, then how is it a 'misuse' of the system? Also, this is the same argument that gets used by large tech companies like Microsoft for building their patent portfolios. It's 'only for defense,' so long as there is no reason to use if offensively. Would you allow the government to put CCTV cameras inside of your home so long as their promised to only use them in case someone breaks into your home (as evidence in a trial)? Once they were installed, and their 'foot is in the door,' how long do you think it will be before that usage is expanded beyond the original promise through a series a baby steps? Overly broad legal wording as a 'defensive' move is a cancer on our society.
- pstack 15y ago
  No, I agree with the fear-mongering. I guess the author needed to fill article space, this week. I'm a privacy-nut type of person and I hate restrictive and absurd licenses. I'm a fan of telling the man to eat it. Note that I'm not justifying restrictive or broad legal agreements, either. I think it's stupid. I just don't think it's any more stupid than similar agreements for similar sites that provide similar services that most of you (including the author of that article) already use every day. However, I don't see anything in the agreement that you wouldn't normally see on any other social networking site. Unlike some other online bookmarking services, Delicious is a social-networking/bookmarking service, which would explain the concern over content and age and so on. It would perturb me if I was having to agree with something like that for a service which was only me saving bookmarks with comments and tags for my own use that only I would see or access via my own account for myself, but that isn't what Delicious has turned into. Very possibly, they may have even bigger "social networking" ambitions for the service after the purchase, which may further necessitate such stringent clauses. Besides, if one cared much about that sort of thing, chances are that they wouldn't stop using Delicious now, because they would have already stopped using Delicious when Yahoo! bought them, for similar concerns over privacy and agreements.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

merloen 15y ago
Those are the old terms.
- corin_ 15y ago
  My bad, deleted my comment. Assumed that "Current (and about to be former)" meant that they were putting former into the brackets (so in that quoted bit it was just a "..." that was removed) and that their bold was showing the new text.
  - dhimes 15y ago
    Please don't delete comments. It fucks up reading the thread. Thanks.

eli 15y ago

I think it's a good question to ask AVOS. It could well just be broilerplate legalese. That said, it's quite easy to backup your Delicious links. Probably a good idea to do that regularly regardless of the terms.

giberson 15y ago

While the policy change does fundamentally allow the company to determine what content to keep and to remove I'm not sure how that provides you with a valid concern about opting in your data for the transfer. IE, if you don't opt in you're basically self censoring yourself as none of the data will get used. If you do opt in, then the majority of it may remain [or be stricken depending on the content you favored bookmarking]. Rather your statement should read "Think twice about opting-out of the delicious-avos transfer. If you opt out then NONE of your data will be kept".

cracki 15y ago
The issue is control and safety. I expect my bookmarks to be complete, to not disappear silently and randomly. I'd rather build my own little bookmarking system on a LAMP server (I will probably do that) than subject my digital life to a company that threatens to cut holes in it.

cracki 15y ago

sweet little command to dump your delicious bookmarks (copied/stolen from the Scrumptious setup guide): curl -u <user>[:<pass>] -o mine.xml https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/all That's now running hourly on my computer. I'll write myself a "loss check" too, to see if any of my "questionable" (private) bookmarks start disappearing.

realityloop 15y ago
unfortunately this currently returns: <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> <result code="api temporarily unavailable" />

mahrain 15y ago

It sure seems like the new South Park episode got people to read terms and conditions ;-)