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Google Docs can now be exported from the Google Takeout menu, thanks to Google's Data Liberation Front. Previously, users could export and import documents in various formats, but they are now available alongside data from all other Google services in Takeout.

Google Takeout was unveiled in summer 2011. It allows Google users to export all their Google data to disk or just data from individual services. It's all thanks to the Data Liberation Front team, which builds tools to give Google users control over their data.

Last week, Diaspora, the open-source, privacy-aware social network of our nerdy dreams, posted its first public response to the launch of Google Plus and the recent efforts around privacy and selective sharing at Facebook. For a reaction to news that two Web behemoths are drinking Diaspora's milkshake in terms of features, the blog post sounds pretty upbeat, with perhaps just a hint of caginess. "We're proud that Google+ imitated one of our core features, aspects, with their circles," the Diaspora team writes. "We're making a difference already."

Let's not get into whether Diaspora can take credit for features of Google Plus and Facebook. There are things about Diaspora that still are unique among its competitors. Not only is it open-source, it's decentralized and distributed. Users are encouraged to set up their own servers. But these are not features for normal human users. In that category, the social networking superpowers seem to have Diaspora cornered.

We have written before about a little-known facet of AWS, the ability to ship your physical hard drive off to that Big Cloud in Seattle and have them make a copy of all your precious data and put it in their cloud.

Last week while covering a tool for analyzing your iPhone location data (or as it turns out, your nearby cell tower and hotspot location data), I mused on my long-time interest in data portability - giving users access to and control over their own data. It's an idea we've been covering here for years.

This week, the customer control over data received more attention, with a write-up in the New York Times, a new Facebook acquisition and the revelation that TomTom sold data on its customers' driving habits to law enforcement. These are three different matters: access, use and control. But they are all connected, and as more of our data is stored in the cloud, I'm glad these matters are starting to get more attention.

Engine Yard announced today the availability of a tool to transfer applications from Heroku's Ruby platform-as-a-service to Engine Yard's own Ruby PaaS, AppCloud.

The migration tool, called ey-migrate, is available from Github. It was created by Engine Yard VP of Technology Dr. Nic Williams. "Back when I was at Mocra, I would have loved a migration tool to help us migrate an initial Heroku app to a production environment like Engine Yard AppCloud," Williams wrote. "Fortunately I had a couple weeks at home recently after the birth of my third child, so I finally had the time to create the tool I always wanted - a migration tool to onboard on to Engine Yard AppCloud from other places."

Just before the weekend, Facebook announced that it would begin allowing third-party applications and websites to request that users share both their mobile phone number and address. Now, the company has said that it will be putting the new feature on hold while it makes changes to make sure that Facebook users are aware of the potential for data sharing.

Douglas Purdy, director of developer relations, just posted on the Facebook developer blog to explain that Facebook agrees with its critics that the feature could be better implemented and the company will be pulling it until changes are made.

Facebook announced this weekend that it would begin offering third-party applications and websites a way to request that users share their "current address and mobile phone number." Simple enough, right?

While Facebook says that the move is intended to make it easier for users to take their information with them across the Web, members of the data portability community argue that its yet another move by Facebook to lock users in. At the same time, the question of how Facebook handles these permission requests and whether or not it's clear to the end user is a point of contention that further calls into question how a user's online identity should be handled.

We asked some experts in the field and here's what they had to say.

A week ago, Google made changes to its Terms of Service that effectively blocked Facebook from importing a user's data from Google without offering reciprocity. Ever since, the two companies have duked it out in public, with public statements, comments on blog posts and even a warning that Facebook would "trap" your data.

We spoke with a few members of the data portability community to see what they had to say about the debate between these two big companies and what it means for the rest of us.

If you hadn't yet heard, there's been a bit of a kerfuffle this past week over your data by two Internet giants - Facebook and Google. It started when Google began blocking other services from importing its data without reciprocity, a move aimed directly at Facebook. Since then, the ball has been hit back and forth, with Facebook making an end-run around Google and deep-linking directly to a contact exporter on Google.

Now, Google has retaliated by asking any user that gets that far if you are "super sure you want to import your contact information for your friends into a service that won't let you get it out?" Take a look at Google's rather hilarious response after the jump.

Facebook announced a number of features yesterday, not the least of which being the ability for its users to download their information - their wall posts, photos, status updates and other content all in one neat package.

While the move is a significant step in the right direction for the social network and its users, a few significant players in the data portability discussion are here to remind us that we aren't there quite yet.