Google CEO — Take Your Data and Run

BobB writes to tell us that Google is promising to make the data they store for end users more portable and is urging other companies to do the same. From the article: "Making it simple for users to walk away from a Google service with which they are unhappy keeps the company honest and on its toes, and Google competitors should embrace this data portability principle, Eric Schmidt said at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco."

Comments

for the "omg you google fanboys" people

[bunions]

next time you post some nonsense about how "all the slashdot people idolize google for some reason," this would be a good example of why we like them.

Re:for the "omg you google fanboys" people

[Headcase88]

I certainly like Google but that's bullshit. Eric is tactful with his words; surely all of this data portability stuff has an additional purpose, like, say, helping bringing valuable data in to Google's services? MS Office is the incumbent here, so of course Google wants to make it easy to transfer data between MS Office and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, for example.

Not saying it's a bad thing, not saying Google isn't a great company, but I wouldn't take any claims made by x about how great x is at face value.

Re:Difficult for more complex data?

[chroot_james]

just because a service is given away for free does not mean it's not profitable. google has a lot to loose if people stop using their services...

Obvious first steps..?

[CdBee]

IMAP for Gmail, where Tags become Folders dynamically. Send as Emailed DOC/XLS/ODW/ODS for Google Docs

Re:Obvious first steps..?

[slazar]

Instead of emailed documents for Google Docs, enable WebDAV. Apple's dot mac service does this. Apple calls it iDisk. Microsoft calls it web folders.

Re:Difficult for more complex data?

[DragonWriter]

Google also doesn't have much to lose by making their data portable ... almost all their services are free, vs. Salesforce which has the potential to lose millions per year on some of their larger customes.

They don't stand as much to lose from any one customer leaving, but they face as much of a problem as anyone else if the same percentage of their customers choose to leave. What Google is gambling is that, if they have a good product, the reduction in the disincentive to give it a whirl that comes from people knowing up front that if they decide to leave, it will be painless will gain them more customers than easing out migration will lose them. And also that someone that has a good experience leaving one Google service may be more likely to try another Google service.

API for Contacts?

[jj00]

How about an API so I can access my Contacts?

Can someone send this article to Palm? I'm sick of having to export my Palm contacts as vcards and import them into Yahoo (Yes Yahoo - Gmail only accepts csv).

POP does this, sort of.

[Kadin2048]

You could always connect via POP and download your GMail to a traditional mail system of your choice periodically.

I'm not sure what happens the first time you connect, because it's been a while that I've been using it, but if I read my email via the web interface (say at work, or at a friend's house) those same messages will still be downloaded via POP the next time I connect it. Even if I've already read/responded/archived those messages (actually it downloads sent messages, too). So this results in me having two copies of every message, one in my local mailfile on my computer, and another in Gmail's repository.

You might have to do something the first time around if you want it to download ALL your stored mail (I don't think it will automatically transfer all your messages the first time or anything), but once you get it working, it's not a bad system. If Google went out of business tomorrow, I wouldn't lose all my hundreds of megabytes of old mail, and if my house got swept away by a tidal wave into the sea, I wouldn't lose it either. (Of course, if Google went out of business AND my house got swept out to sea, then I'd be fucked. But hey, what's life without risk?)

The POP connection is still a little disappointing after being used to IMAP mail (please, Google, please!), but it's better than any other service that I've played with. It beats the hell out of ISP-provided email, and I'd rather have a gmail.com address than a yahoo.com or (gag) hotmail.com one. Gmail doesn't really have any tech cachet to it anymore, but at least it doesn't say "internet ghetto" like Hotmail does.

Re:But will they follow through with it?

[DragonWriter]

One could make a fairly good argument that google has some of the best-in-class services on the web, and they know it.

And openness as far as transfers out as well as in is a good way to underline that they have the best-in-class services, because it makes services not similarly open suspect ("why are they trying to lock me in?")

Re:Great, now if only they would let me **delete**

[VidEdit]

"Moreover, how is privacy violated by a mechanical record? "

Basic rule of privacy and security: The only way to guarantee that records aren't released into the wild is not to collect them in the first place.

"Who cares what some computer uses to process information, so long as it's just a computer observing the data?"

As long as the data exists it can be demanded by the government through National Security Letters and by corporations and individuals in lawsuits, including divorce suits. So, yes, the very existence of this data pool is a privacy risk. Or there could be a security breach like the AOL "anonymized" search data release or a hack. All data collections are potential risks. The more personalized the data, the greater the risk.

"Why should people be more wary of Google than they are of any other link in this chain?"

Why should we be less wary? The all have potential pitfalls. This thread happens to be about Google in specific.