New Google Site Offers Instructions For Moving Data From Google Services
A two-year old project by Google engineers working across departments to enable users to remove their data from Google services has been opened to the public in the form of a website with import and export instructions for Google services the team has helped "liberate".
Called the Data Liberation Front, the project team said in a Google blog post today that it has "liberated" more than half of the major Google services. "In the upcoming months," writes project lead Brian Fitzpatrick, "we also plan to liberate Google Sites and Google Docs (batch-export)."
Google deserves big accolades for working to make data export easy and for making all the information readily accessible. Hey Facebook - are you working on something similar to this or are you hoping that the borders of your users' data will remain unbreached by the Data Liberation Front?
Making sure the door isn't locked if users choose to leave a service is a required, if less exciting, part of the data portability movement. Just as important as a bulk dump of user data is the option for users to easily and securely port data online from service to service for immediate personalization based on past activity at a legacy site. Google is a market leader in that kind of data portability as well.
The information on DataLiberation.org does not include instructions for deleting your data from Google's servers. The project is taking suggestions for acts of liberation on a Google Moderator page and is publishing updates on Twitter.
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If there are no instructions for deleting your data, shouldn't the title of this article be different? "New Google Site Offers Instructions For Copying Data From Google Services," perhaps? If you can't delete it, you don't own it.
Kent, well put. I am going to revise the title.
Hmm ... maybe I'm being a cranky old fuddy duddy, but "moving" says to me that the thing I moved was once HERE and is now over THERE. If data wasn't deleted from its original location, it was copied, not moved.
"Hey Facebook - are you working on something similar to this or are you hoping that the borders of your users' data will remain unbreached by the Data Liberation Front?"
I expect to see a "iTunes vs. Pre sync hack" type dynamic between Face-"blackhole"-Book and the Data Liberation Front.
Facebook will add this when users clamor for it en masse. Which is not likely to be soon.
A smart move for Google removing one of the barriers which has stopped people from adopting their services.
New Google Site Offers Instructions For Removing Data From Google Services http://bit.ly/5xDmo [from http://twitter.com/marshallk/statuses/3983581797]
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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September 15, 2009 9:10 AM
Yaa its seems a really amazing move by google.
I appreciate lot this kinds of stuffs.
Thanks for the post.
I always remember a post by a man keen to close his myspace account who, after months of frustration he wrote, 'i have now changed my name to Rupert Murdoch and replaced my profile shot with a scantily clad lady. I expect it to be closed within five minutes'. Dunno if it worked, but you can always change just the important stuff so much, it doesn't matter.
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