4 ms·

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 an

by ajays 14y ago

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 14y ago
That sounds like one of the most awful ideas I've ever heard.
- masklinn 14y ago
  Because it prevents lock-in? How's that awful?
  - vladd 14y ago
    For 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 ago
    1) 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.
    - ajays 14y ago
      Wait: did we have such problems when number portability became the law? I don't remember that happening.
  - tolmasky 14y ago
    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.
    - altcognito 14y ago
      Why shouldn't private companies be required to divulge the information they are tracking about you when requested? (other than it is inconvenient) Note: Nobody should ask these companies to divulge the algorithmic results of their data collection)
    - isaacaggrey 14y ago
      > 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.
- ajays 14y ago
  Just like number portability, right? I see this working just like Open Auth. You are on site X. You tell them you want to import your data from site Y. You authenticate yourself, and (insert a waiting period here if you like) then site X pulls your data from site Y in some conveniently packaged format, which is irrelevant to you, the user. Currently do you care how G+, FB, Twitter, etc. store your data? Then why should you care how they export it from Y to X?
thrownaway2424 14y ago
If you want all of your personal data from Facebook, just set yourself up as a Facebook application provider, sign up for your own app, and Facebook will cheerfully transmit it to you.

by ajays 14y ago

waterlesscloud 14y ago

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

masklinn 14y ago
Because it prevents lock-in? How's that awful?
- vladd 14y ago
  For 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 ago
  1) 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.
  - ajays 14y ago
    Wait: did we have such problems when number portability became the law? I don't remember that happening.
- tolmasky 14y ago
  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.
  - altcognito 14y ago
    Why shouldn't private companies be required to divulge the information they are tracking about you when requested? (other than it is inconvenient) Note: Nobody should ask these companies to divulge the algorithmic results of their data collection)
  - isaacaggrey 14y ago
    > 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.
ajays 14y ago
Just like number portability, right? I see this working just like Open Auth. You are on site X. You tell them you want to import your data from site Y. You authenticate yourself, and (insert a waiting period here if you like) then site X pulls your data from site Y in some conveniently packaged format, which is irrelevant to you, the user. Currently do you care how G+, FB, Twitter, etc. store your data? Then why should you care how they export it from Y to X?

thrownaway2424 14y ago

If you want all of your personal data from Facebook, just set yourself up as a Facebook application provider, sign up for your own app, and Facebook will cheerfully transmit it to you.