2010 DPP Steering Committee/Board of Directors Announced

The Data Portability Project is pleased to announce the election of its new board for the 2010 term. Election and participation in the Steering Committee and Board of Directors is pursuant to the in-force governance charter of the organization and subject to certification by the DPP Corporate Secretary.

The charter provides for the participation of no less than four and no more than twelve members. Nine individuals were nominated and subsequently ratified as the new board for the 2010 term beginning January 1st, 2010. The new board is: Daniela Barbosa, Elias Bizannes, Dan Brickley, Brady Brim-Deforest, Anthony Broad-Crawford, Willem Kossen, Drummond Reed, Steve Repetti, and Phil Wolff.

The Data Portability community would like to welcome the new board and extend a heart-felt thank-you to the 2009 board and everyone that helped contribute to the cause of Data Portability over the past 12 months.

Steve Repetti
DPP Corporate Secretary

Still Looking for that Special Gift? Give them some DataPortability

See all available gear at our DataPortability Project CafePress store.

What’s on the cool kids list this year?  They want to show their support for data portability with some of the following gear:

1.0 L Sigg Bottle Ringer Tshirt

Trucker hat Cap

Spaghetti Tank Baseball Jersey

Holiday Image background by: TeaBass

Data Portability Membership Registration and Board Elections

Since its founding, the Data Portability organization has been fortunate to have had participation from a diverse collection of folks scattered throughout the globe. So much has already be done, yet there is so much left to accomplish. There are exciting things ahead for data portability in 2010, and this is all as the result of the strength and participation of the Data Portability membership.

It is time to elect the leadership for this effort for the upcoming year, and everyone has the opportunity to participate. But first, you need to reaffirm your membership. You do this by posting a message to the “Data Portability Voting Mailing List” stating that you wish to be a member. Even if you are already a member, you must restate the message in accordance with our bylaws.

NOTE: If you have already affirmed your membership to the general mailing list or to the steering mailing list, please also leave a note on the voting mail list.

Here’s the link to post your membership message: http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-vote

That’s all it takes to be a member for the entire 2010 term! If you also would like to be part of the Data Portability Steering Committee / Board of Directors, then you must also post a message stating that you would like to nominate yourself. You should also post a brief introduction about yourself as well as your thoughts about Data Portability.

Here’s the link to post your nomination message: http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-vote

Please do not wait to register as a member or to nominate yourself as there are deadlines coming up quickly.

Here’s a link to more detailed information: http://wiki.dataportability.org/display/dpmain/Steering+Elections+for+2010+Term

Thanks for all of your support and consideration, and we all look forward to the fantastic year ahead for Data Portability!

A Shining Example of Great Work in the Open Web!

The web is full of interesting initiatives and exciting efforts by lots of folks and organizations. All too often the results of these efforts are lost in the noise of everything else going on, rendering it virtually impossible to keep up with all of the “good stuff”. Today, one of the good things came into the light, and its synergistic association with the principals of Data Portability compel me to share it with you.

The Open Web Foundation (“OWF”) has a simple but important charter: to be “an independent non-profit dedicated to the development and protection of open, non-proprietary specifications for web technologies.” That concise message has relevance to all of us, but in particular to the developers and innovators of the next greatest things.

A major milestone was accomplished today by the OWF through the release of the “Open Web Foundation Agreement”, an important document in the world of the open web.

“This reusable agreement is designed to be easily adopted by a wide range of specification communities and organizations as an alternative to the challenging — and costly — process of negotiating new licensing agreements every time.” – DeWitt Clinton

This is the kind of effort that benefits everyone in so many ways, and it is a model of how things can be defined, enhanced, and extended by hard working folks seeking a common goal using an open format — for the benefit of all.

In many ways, this effort mirrors many of the things that we are doing here in Data Portability, including commonality of EULA, and terms of service initiatives.

Here’s the entire document: http://openwebfoundation.org/2009/11/introducing-the-open-web-foundation-agreement.html

Kudos to those who assisted in its creation, and to those whose future participation will continue the effort.

POWER.COM Serves FACEBOOK a PR HEADACHE, Thrusts DATA PORTABILITY into LEGAL Spotlight

Yesterday, social aggregator POWER.COM filed a countersuit against Facebook that raises some thorny issues for Facebook and adds some interesting defenses for the case of data portability and personal data ownership.  It is not yet clear from reading the pleadings whether either party will win in this escalating case (there are some key issues and concepts on both sides that a Court will have to wade through), but it is clear the issue of Data Portability comes center stage.

Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch released an interesting article on the subject, “Power.com Countersues Facebook over Data Portability,” along with a copy of the counter-suite.

In their opening salvo, Power steps up to the soap box and discusses “a borderless Internet where users have the right to own and control their own data” and goes on to present their recently adopted “Internet User Bill of Rights:”

This is great stuff for users and data portability, and in many ways mirrors much of our work over at the Data Portability Project (http://www.dataportability.org), however it has little to do with what Facebook is doing in the context of their site or their lawsuit. It does, however, place Facebook in a position of having to answer why it does not agree with these principals.

Thus far, Facebook has tread cautiously as it relates to user data and rights therein. They do not wish to give away the store or proprietary and competitive advantage, nor do they wish to (further) incur the wrath of its users by inflicting too many restrictions. Many of us hoped that a number of Facebook’s recent initiatives signaled their willingness to explore a leadership role in this highly important area. Unfortunately, the pleadings conflict with this hoped for direction.

From Facebook’s perspective, Power.com violated Facebook’s stated terms and conditions; the contract that establishes the relationship between the parties for the use of the site.  Every Facebook user has agreed to this (or they wouldn’t be using the site), but, like virtually every other “terms and conditions” document, it is overly broad, highly protective, filled with legalese, and generally ignored by most actual users.  It is merely the lack of enforcement by the provider (in this case Facebook) that keeps these things out of court more often. (The standardization and simplification of this topic is also the subject of much work over at Data Portability and other advocacy organizations).

Power.com counters by saying they are doing nothing that Facebook isn’t already doing themselves, and, besides, theirs (they believe) is the right way anyway. It is clear that Facebook does not agree with this position but now is in the difficult position of explaining why many of the good points that Power.com raises are not valid within Facebook.

Still, Facebook is a privately held company and they get to decide what is allowed or not. No court, other than the one of public opinion, can force them to do what they do not want to do – unless the legal line is crossed.

And while I do not believe that Power.com has a leg to stand on when trying to win based on how much “screen scraping” of data is allowed (Facebook’s terms and conditions say none), they have raised some interesting issues that could inspire both the court of opinion and the hollowed halls of justice.

At the very least, Facebook is highly conflicted. It does not own the copyrights associated with all of the information available on its site; it does use some of the very techniques with 3rd-party sites that it accuses Power.com of using against Facebook; it has moved in the direction of providing greater access to its data; and it is party to litigation that potentially represents a PR quagmire.

More significantly for Facebook, Power.com raises the issues of “Restraint of Trade” and “Restraint on Competition” regarding data portability which both lead to the dreaded “M” word: MONOPOLY. Specifically:

“Facebook’s conduct restricting users’ ability to access their own data constitutes an unlawful restraint of trade under Section I of the Sherman Act.”

“Facebook’s conduct constitutes monopolization (or attempted monopolization, ed.) of the market for social networking website services in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

With all of the issues at hand, I predict that there will be chest banging and posturing by both sides, some “interesting” press conferences, followed by a negotiated settlement that washes the issue aside and lets both parties (partially) save face. Regardless, Facebook will likely take a PR “black eye” over this.

But I submit there is another, better, solution: Facebook should not only continue its current efforts of data portability and accessibility, but become the leading player on how to do it right!  Users would benefit, Facebook would be crowned a friend to all proponents of Data Portability, and the lawyers would find something else to do! In absence of such, Facebook risks becoming the view in the rear view mirror for the company that actually does get it right.

IMHO.

Steve Repetti

www.radwebtech.com

Redefining and Standardizing ‘Ownership’

Facebook, by virtue of its sheer size and scope, is often the first to run into issues that the rest of the social web will need to address sooner rather than later. To its credit, Facebook seems to be trying to address these issues in a way that protects their short and long term business while balancing the needs of the community.

By observing these actions the DataPortability project, and the wider community, can learn lessons on what works and what doesn’t so we can all adopt clear community endorsed best practices.

The latest Facebook step (misstep?) occurred last week when they made some changes to their Terms of Service and one of the items of contention by many is the following statement:

“You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. “

“So Who Owns Your Data” is always a question that myself and other members of the DataPortability Project (DPP) have grappled with for some time. No doubt ‘ownership’ of data is top of mind to people who are interested in data portability.

We have said in the past that Ownership without Control is worthless. Scope of Control, however, seems to stem from ownership. That is, you should only be able to control what you own. So the fundamental question of Ownership is still important.

‘Ownership’, however, is tricky when you are talking about bits and bytes that are getting shared, indexed, replicated and mixed together by multiple services and participants.

Perhaps Ownership is not the right metaphor at all? Late last year, fellow DPP co-founder Elias took the time to address some thoughts on ‘ownership’ of data with a post titled “You don’t nor need to own your data” that I would recommend reading. In it, Elias discusses traditional concepts of ownership and goes on to suggest that perhaps we need a new term to describe our relationship to social data.

Here is a large section from his post:

First of all, let’s define property ownership: “the ability to deny use of an asset by another entity”. The reason you can claim status to owning your house, is because you can deny someone else access to your property. Most of us have a fence to separate our property from the public space; others like the hillbillies sit in their rocking chair with a shot gun ready to fire. Either way, it’s well understood if someone else owns something, and if you trespass, the dogs will chase after you.

The characteristics of ownership can be described as follows:

1. You have legal title recognising in your legal jurisdiction that you own it.
2. You have the ability to enforce your right of ownership in your legal jurisdiction
3. You can get benefits from the property.

The third point is key. When people cry out loud “I own my data”, that’s essentially the reason (when you take out the Neanderthal emotionally-driven reasoning out of the equation). Where we get a little lost though, is when we define those benefits. It could be said, that you want to be able to control your data so that you can use it somewhere else, and so you can make sure someone else doesn’t use it in a way that causes you harm.

Whilst that might sound like ownership to you, that’s where the house of cards collapses. The reason being, unless you can prove the ability to deny use by another entity, you do not have ownership. It’s a trap, because data is not like a physical good which cannot be easily copied. It’s like a butterfly locked in a safe: the moment you open that safe up, you can say good bye. If data can only satisfy the ownership definition when you hide it from the world, that means when it’s public to the world, you no longer own it. And that sucks, because data by nature is used for public consumption. But what if you could get the same benefits of ownership – or rather, receive benefits of usage and regulate usage – without actually ‘owning’ it?

Property and data – same same, but different
Both property and data are assets. They create value for those who use them. But that’s where the similarity’s end.

Property gains value through scarcity. The more unique, the more valuable. Data on the other hand, gains value through reuse. The more derivative works off it, means the more information generated (as information is simply data connected with other data). The more information, the more knowledge, the more value created – working its way along the information value chain. If data is isolated, and not reused, it has little value. For example, if a company has a piece of data but is not allowed to ever use it – there is no value to it.

Data gains value through use, and additional value through reuse and derivative creations. If no one reads this blog, it’s a waste of space; if thousands of people read it, its value increases – as these ideas are decimated. To give one perspective on this, when people create their own posts reusing the data I’ve created, I generate value through them linking back to me. No linking, no value realised. Of course, I get a lot more value out of it beyond page rank juice, but hopefully you realise if you “steal” my content (with at least some acknowledgement to me the person), then you are actually doing me a favour.

Ignore the above!
Talking about all this ownership stuff doesn’t actually matter; it’s not ownership that we want. Let’s take a step back, and look at this from a broader, philosophical view.

Property ownership is based on the concept that you get value from holding something for an extended period of time. But in an age of rapid change, do you still get value from that? Let’s say, we lose the Holy War for people being able to ‘own’ their data. Facebook – you win – you now ‘own’ me. This is because it owns the data about me – my identity, it would appear, is under the control of Facebook – it now owns, that “I am in a relationship”. However, the Holy War might have been lost but I don’t care. Because Facebook owns crap – as six months ago, I was in a relationship. Now I’m single and haven’t updated my status. The value for Facebook, is not in owning me in a period of time: it’s in having access to me all the time – because one way they translate that data into value is advertising, and targeting ads is pointless if you have the wrong information to base your targetting on. Probably the only data that can be static in my profile, is birth-date and gender – but with some tampering and cosmetics, even those can be altered now!

With their change of terms, Facebook is essentially saying that they will ‘forever own’ a copy of your data as part of their archives to do with what they wish. I will go so far as to sympathize personally with the team there and give them an approving nod for some of Zuckerberg’s comments especially acknowledging that they are indeed trying to address some serious questions around how we live our digital lives. It’s not easy and they certainly don’t have to go it alone.

I would invite them, and anyone else interested in the topic, to join one of our most recent TaskForces – the EULA & ToS Taskforce.

Following the example of  Creative Commons, the goal of our task force is to identify and name key concepts that help users and service providers understand what each other expects . The intended output will be a set of documents that can be referenced or included in EULA and TOS agreements and simple descriptions for users to understand what it means when they upload and share data with services providers.

As part of this taskforce, we seek to provide a standard way of describing the relationship between the user and site that is easy to understand and provides both sides with the control that they need.

If you are interested in the subject – now is the time to join us and help define some basic principles that services providers should support by joining and supporting the work that the EULA & ToS Taskforce is conducting.

And another kudos to Facebook for starting a discussion topic immediately on the “People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS)” Facebook Group. Some real use cases and concerns are being captured in that discussion that will help us all as we work towards our common goal.

Some additional posts on the subject of Facebooks New Terms of Service:

• Where the buzz started on the Consumerist Blog (a consumer advocacy blog) Facebook’s New Terms Of Service: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.”
• Caroline McCarthy CNET: Facebook: Relax, we won’t sell your photos
• An interesting overview of the various terms of service out there by Amanda French : Facebook terms of service compared with MySpace, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter
• web.tech.law What Facebook’s revised terms of use mean for your content
• There are plenty of other posts and suspect more to come so here is a link to posts via Techmeme
• Comparing the Terms and Conditions of Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter.