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Larry Page: “We’re still waiting” for Facebook to unlock user data
- btian 14y agoI suggest Larry read T&C of Facebook.
- abrahamsen 14y agoIs that where they say that Facebook contact information may be exported to yahoo and hotmail, but not to gmail?
- esolyt 14y agoIn 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.
- fpgeek 14y agoPart of his point is that Facebook's T&C related to contact export would surprise many of their users.
- romeodelight 14y agoSo 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.
- Drbble 14y agoYou misunderstand the headline. He is talking about letting users export their data. Here is an article with the full quote from Page: http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/larry-page-on-charlie-rose-were-still-waiting-for-facebook-to-unlock-user-data/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/larry-page-on-charlie-rose...
- mayanksinghal 14y agoAs 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]
- romeodelight 14y agoI choose what I want to share on FB. I don't want Google near my user info.
- fpgeek 14y agoAnd because of this, other people who want to export their contact list to Gmail shouldn't be able to without large amounts of manual effort?
- sriramk 14y agoThis isn't a judgement on ads. This goes to whether I can move networks if I choose to.
- mayanksinghal 14y agoAnd 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.
- twelvechairs 14y agoObviously 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 14y agoI 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.
- gojomo 14y agoI 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 14y agohttp://www.google.com/history http://www.google.com/history
- gojomo 14y ago(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.
- icebraining 14y agoRe: (1), I can get any results in RSS, even stuff from 2010; the format is implemented as just a view of the normal webpage. Try clicking on "Oldest" on the webpage and then appending "&output=rss" to the URL. It'd be nicer if they included paging URLs in the RSS itself, though. Re: (2), while I wish they'd let you collect that, I think there's a difference between data you generate while using their services and data generated elsewhere that you feed them. (I wonder if a request under the same EU directive that forced Facebook to give you all that stuff back would force Google to give you those trails too)
- magicalist 14y agoIn 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...
- sytelus 14y agoFB 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.
- esolyt 14y agoPage's point is that you can't import your Facebook contacts to another service, such as Google+.
- antirez 14y agothat's a pretty biased point indeed.
- joe_the_user 14y agoEmail Addresses? Really? Those were removed for quite a while. If they're available now, it's kind of a big deal.
- Jakegissing 14y agoIf the friends has their email address viewable on their profile then yes. Makes sense.
- btn 14y agoThere's now an option in every user's General Account Settings: Allow friends to include my email address in Download Your Information. I'm not sure what the default is, but mine is currently set to "no" (and I don't recall changing it).
- duaneb 14y agoExport ≠ openness. It's just giving the user everything they already see from their facebook page.
- noarchy 14y agoEvery time I've attempted to use this feature, it hasn't worked. Not sure if my experience is unique.
- ajays 14y agoThere'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 14y agoThat sounds like one of the most awful ideas I've ever heard.
- masklinn 14y agoBecause it prevents lock-in? How's that awful?
- vladd 14y agoFor any given regulatory measure X, no matter how basic common sense it sounds or how 'human rights'-like it is, there will always be someone that thinks that free market should trump X because in the long term the market actors will magically evolve by themselves towards their best interests and the optimum equilibrium so X is not needed. Come to think of it, even I am unsure about choosing between free market capitalism and having a bunch of old-age senators writing laws about something that they don't understand (considering that they're clueless about the feasibility of implementing what they legislate at the technical level).
- qxcv 14y ago1) It requires implementation. Implementation is often costly and sometimes infeasible (e.g. Vimeo having to build feature which lets you download all XXXgb of your videos at once). 2) It opens the door to litigation. "I told gave <web service> <piece of data> and now I can't get it back easily. Give me money". Don't laugh now, because we all know that laws designed to protect IP tend to be abused (patents, copyright, etc.). I'm sure that Europeans will set the precedent for this one with their tracking opt-out laws. 3) What format should it be delivered in? Can Facebook just give you a 100Mb HTML file with all of the things you've "liked" or does it have to be more accessible? Is a purely machine readable format alright or must it be human readable too? Of course, it's possible to create a law which gives just the right amount of data freedom to users WITHOUT turning every social website into a horrible Dropbox clone, but there's a very fine line between making legislation toothless and making it pedantic.
- muyuu 14y agoSpeaking 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 14y agoI'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.
- rys 14y agoI think the OP is referring to some devices not letting you remove the first account you add to it, forcing the factory reset if you want to do so.
- muyuu 14y agoYep, 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 14y agoWait 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.
- conradfr 14y agoI'm still waiting for Google to explain to me why they banned me from adsense and stole my money.
- chj 14y agoI'm still waiting for Google to stop asking for my mobile numbers.
- thrownaway2424 14y agoYour 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.
- zerostar07 14y agoHopefully, 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 14y agoThere are for the most part viable open and closed alternatives to facebook... we just need to overcome facebooks socially enforced vendor lockin
- zerostar07 14y agoI 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.
- loverobots 14y agoIn other words, Google is willing to share its users’ contact information with Facebook, but only if Facebook is willing to do the reverse. No doubt those 900 million users are a juicy target. Sorry, I don't think Google is being altruistic here and it's perfectly fine, since they're a for-profit corp.
- tuke 14y agoWe're still waiting for Facebook to unlock user data . . . so we can index it and exploit it.
- skarayan 14y agoThe 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.
- draggnar 14y agoThe problem is the ownership. Do you own the data or does the company you post the data on own the data? This is a decision that needs to be made, and I believe that everyone knows the answer but can't take their eyes off the dollar signs.
- josefonseca 14y ago> Do you own the data or does the company you post the data on own the data? This is a decision that needs to be made This decision was made long ago. The remedy is called habeas data and YOU own your personal data and nobody else. Whether other parties(like an employer) can USE your data, is a matter of contract and agreement. But who owns it is already decided.
- draggnar 14y agoDid not know this. The transparency of control over data needs to be much clearer. But how about if Google collects its OWN information about me. Does that fall under habeas data?
- josefonseca 14y ago> But how about if Google collects its OWN information about me. Does that fall under habeas data? Anyone whom you suspect has data on you can be subpoenaed to give you, and only you, the data they have about you. The government included, even spy agencies - you have the right to request your personal information from any other person, corporation or governmental agency.
- cooldeal 14y agoInteresting, 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.
- idspispopd 14y agoWhile 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 14y agoI 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
- mark_l_watson 14y agoQuestion: 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?