Full article here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57415764-93/tim-berners-lee-tell-facebook-google-you-want-your-data-back/

Every day, Facebook consumes billions of snippets of people’s lives in . . . → Read More: The State of Data Portability in Social Media, Part I – A Closer Look at Facebook]]> [The following is not a commentary on data portability policies at Facebook --- that will be a follow-up to this series. Instead, this article attempts to document the current state of data portability within social media, and in this case, Facebook in particular]

Every day, Facebook consumes billions of snippets of people’s lives in the form of freely-provided pictures, comments, messages, and more and stores them away in server facilities scattered throughout the world. This information is added to the tons of other information they already have and then used to render details of our lives upon request. But beyond the Facebook website, how can a user interact directly with their information?

Accessing your Facebook information is as simple as visiting your Facebook page, or that of your friends. This structured format is constantly being tweaked to provide what Facebook believes is the best way for you to interact with all of this information. But they also provide a mechanism for you to take your data “offline” through the downloading of a “personal archive”, as in:

Getting to this result starts easily enough, simply access your account settings from your Facebook page and select “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of the GENERAL ACCOUNT SETTINGS tab.

After a bit of security validation, the process begins. Facebook starts gathering your information into your personal archive and emails you when complete. Not all of your information is provided, however, particularly things that involve activity with others. Specific information includes:

Now, I believe that I am a moderate to light-weight Facebook user. I do not use it every day, although I do have several hundred “friends” and my twitter feed auto-posts to Facebook. Still, it took almost a full hour to gather my information and package it up with neatly organized directories into a 44MB zip file ready for me to download.

And here’s the content of the zip file representing my personal archive from Facebook:

Now that I have my data on my own computer, I can browse through it without having to be connected to the internet. I have successfully downloaded a copy of my data Facebook allows me to access offline. There were some issues browsing the data, the biggest being no “pagination” for the data, hence when I tried to view all my messages the browser locked up trying to render so much information.

From a pure data portability perspective, this process is more of a “backup” of data than true data portability. The information provided is pre-formatted into html documents that make it easy to interact with IN THE FORMAT CHOSEN BY FACEBOOK, however much of the underlying data is unavailable to non-programmers.

I had hoped to see additional formats to the archive, or even just one, other than formatted HTML. JSON would have been my first choice, and, in fact, there was a time when Facebook did provide this option, but alas no more.

Programmers have considerably more options through Facebook’s extensive SOCIAL GRAPH API and related tools and resources, but this is not for the average user. Most applications today that integrate with Facebook are doing so in one form or another through the API interface (or one of its related components or plugins).

Interaction with graph data is extensive. From the Facebook’s Developer pages:

“The Graph API presents a simple, consistent view of the Facebook social graph, uniformly representing objects in the graph (e.g., people, photos, events, and pages) and the connections between them (e.g., friend relationships, shared content, and photo tags).”

Facebook has also provided public access to the GRAPH API through the use of its RESTful interface. This makes it extremely easy to gather specific information from the social graph simply by referencing a web address, as in:

Facebook itself is not the only option for users interested in extracting their information. One of the most interesting alternatives is a site called www.givememydata.com (with an accompanying Facebook App), built by assistant professor of art Owen Mundy of Florida State University. It essentially provides a user interface to many of the programmatic aspects of the Facebook Graph API.

A variety of other options exist that can help users access and interact with their information, but ultimately Facebook has the biggest opportunity, as well as responsibility, to see these initiatives through.

Coming up next: The State of Data Portability in Social Media, Part II – A Closer Look at Google.

– Steve Repetti
    www.radwebtech.com

Facebook continues to improve on data portability issues. On The Media spoke last week to an Austrian student sent a thousand-page data dump when he asked Facebook for his personal data under EU law. Today, when you ask, Facebook sends you a form email (text below). You’re still not getting all of your . . . → Read More: Facebook: More access to your data]]>

Facebook continues to improve on data portability issues. On The Media spoke last week to an Austrian student sent a thousand-page data dump when he asked Facebook for his personal data under EU law. Today, when you ask, Facebook sends you a form email (text below). You’re still not getting all of your data, but your self-service options are more complete and easier. Data you can download includes your profile and much of your activity, including off-Facebook “likes.” How useful and reusable is the downloaded data? I don’t know; if you try, please ping me and I’ll update the post. Meanwhile, Facebook’s Data Access Request Team writes “We expect to have a new tool with additional categories of data to download available in the next few months.”  Here’s hoping the new downloads come with specs so third-parties can put your archive to work.

Hi,

We are sending you this email to update you on our agreement with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland regarding subject access requests. Following conversation with the Office, Facebook agreed to provide further categories of personal data to its members. With the agreement of the Office, this will be accomplished on a rolling basis due to the engineering tasks related to making these new data available in a self-service manner. We expect to have a new tool with additional categories of data to download available in the next few months. However, as soon as you have converted to Facebook’s new profile called “timeline,” you will have immediate access to historical and current data. The following categories of data will be available to you on your timeline and in your “activity log”, which is accessed directly from your timeline:

- Comment on others’ posts, photos
- Posts on others’ timelines
- Others’ posts on your timeline
- Various app activity
- Open graph activity (listened to a song, read an article)
- Status updates
- Likes
- Posts in Groups
- Posts on Pages
- Shared links, photos, other information
- Added friends

We encourage you to explore these features while we work on the new download tool.

Please read through this email to learn more specifically about the types of personal data that Facebook processes and how you can access your personal data.

Personal Data Processed by Facebook

We encourage you to have a look at the “Data Use Policy” (formerly called Privacy Policy), which describes:

• The categories of data being processed by Facebook,

• The personal data that Facebook receives from Facebook members,

• The purpose or purposes of the processing of such data,

• The source or sources(s) of the data, if known, and

• The recipients or categories of recipients to whom Facebook members’ personal data are or may be disclosed

You will find the current version of the Data Use Policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/

Accessing Your Personal Data – From Your Account

We’ve built a convenient self-service tool to offer people who use Facebook the opportunity to access the personal data we hold about them. We are adding an additional tool in the coming months. You can access your data immediately any time, free of charge.

To find the self-service data access tool:

1. Click the account menu at the top right of any Facebook page

2. Choose Account Settings

3. Click the link at the bottom of the page “Download a copy of your Facebook data”

Check to see whether we have your credit card information stored by clicking > Account Settings > Payment Methods. From there, you may choose to change or delete stored credit card information.

Please note that we have several measures in place to ensure the security of your information. We require you to confirm your identity to complete the process. You will not be able to access the downloaded information until you have completed the security check.

Your downloaded file may contain sensitive information. You should keep it secure and take precautions when storing, sending or uploading it to any other services.

Remember: You can also access the personal data held in your current profile (timeline) and activity log anytime by logging in to Facebook. When you have logged in, you can correct, change or delete your information. If you are having trouble logging in to your account, please visit our Login and Password help page:

https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=174

Accessing Your Personal Data – Without an Account

If you are unable to access your profile or if you do not have an account, please click here:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact_us.php?id=166828260073047

You will find a special form here for you to make a request to access your data.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,
Facebook User Operations – Data Access Request Team

Murphy
User Operations
Facebook

The big companies love to embrace data portability and the freedom it provides its users, not to mention the press and goodwill that comes with it, as long as it doesn’t conflict with their corporate agenda.

Let’s call it what it is: Facebook and Google both support “convenient” data . . . → Read More: Data Portability Wars : Google and Facebook vs. YOU]]> Well, here we go again.

The big companies love to embrace data portability and the freedom it provides its users, not to mention the press and goodwill that comes with it, as long as it doesn’t conflict with their corporate agenda.

Let’s call it what it is: Facebook and Google both support “convenient” data portability — at all times convenient for them, *sometimes* convenient for you.

Google and Facebook have both flirted with data portability and it was generally taken as a good sign when both hired leading open source/data portability advocates (Chris Messina and David Recordon respectively). Facebook’s APIs and social graph integration, as well as Google’s Takeout initiative, have been shining examples of the net result of this effort.

Still, despite these advances, both companies continue to “play” with your data – to your detriment. Back in February, Google removed an existing feature from its Android mobile phone operating system specifically to make it more difficult for users to integrate their Facebook contacts (Nexus S losing Facebook contacts sync as Google tightens data policy).

The latest salvo in this escalating war occurred while the US celebrated its Independence day holiday weekend: Facebook disabled a critical feature used to export your friends data (Facebook blocks Google Chrome extension for exporting friends). This appears to be a direct response to Google’s recent moves further into social networking: Google+ (Facebook blocks friend export tool in Google+ snub ).

The reality is that we gave both companies the right to monkey with our data. We accepted their terms of service when we joined their services and we continually agree when they make changes – for better or worse. And, while a few have left in protest, it is not practical to expect much more.

Let’s call it what it is: Facebook and Google both support “convenient” data portability — at all times convenient for them, *sometimes* convenient for you. And maybe that’s ok. After all, they are commercial enterprises answerable to boards and shareholders and subject to their leadership within.

I get it. Information is an asset, and why would anyone fiscally responsible intentionally dilute or give away an asset?

And therein is the conflict. Us versus them, my data versus their monetization of it.

I hereby challenge Google, Facebook, and all other interested parties to sit down at a DATA PORTABILITY SUMMIT and figure it out together.

This is complicated stuff. If Google and Facebook truly want to be the global purveyors of information that they purport to be, they’ll figure it out – or leave opportunity for the next company to come along and get it right. But the first thing they need to understand is that they cannot do it alone. When crafting global policy regarding user’s data they must include the user, otherwise they are simply more walled-gardens of varying heights.

So, before this thing spirals any further, let’s talk about it.

As Chairman of the International non-profit Data Portability organization, I hereby challenge Google, Facebook, and all other interested parties to sit down at a DATA PORTABILITY SUMMIT and figure it out together. Name the place, name the time – or your users will. Now is your chance to truly show leadership on a global scale. But know this: that coveted asset of information you possess exists solely because of your users. It’s ok to be capitalistic, and its good not to be evil, but it’s time to make data portability convenient for us all.

Interested in the DATA PORTABILITY SUMMIT? Let me know: steve@radwebtech.com

Steve Repetti
Chairman, DataPortability.org

The list so far.

A new asset class? That’s a telling use of language. Investopedia refers to . . . → Read More: World Economic Forum starts work on Data Portability]]> When titans of industry and state meet, worlds can change. The World Economic Forum launched a three year “Rethinking Personal Data” project, including data portability. Their first report, Personal Data: The Emergence of a New Asset Class, shows their direction.

A new asset class? That’s a telling use of language. Investopedia refers to securities with “similar characteristics, behave similarly in the marketplace, and are subject to the same laws and regulations.” Stocks, bonds, cash, real estate, and intellectual property are common asset classes. Some managerial accountants defined human capital as a new asset class.

Securities and IP go back hundreds of years. As a new asset class, personal data will have its own characteristics and market behavior, its own laws and regulations. We’ve barely mapped this new landscape. U.S. law doesn’t even recognize a theory of rights associated with personal data. So there is a great deal of work ahead. Some of that is ours, at the DataPortability Project. It falls to the DPP to crisply define data portability’s purpose, why it matters, how it fits into lives lived digitally. That’s some of our work at next week’s Internet Identity Workshop in Mountain View. [Skype me if you’d like an IIW discount code.]

Speed matters. A look at the chart below, from Bain, shows a rush to capitalize on billion dollar markets in data.

If we don’t embed data portability values and vision into the new identity and personal data infrastructure, it could take decades to achieve our goals.

So read WEF’s first report, below the fold. See where their thinking is now. And ask: where can we amplify their commitment to personal data portability?

WEF ITTC Personal Data New Asset Report 2011