Google Helps People Get Their Data Out Of Google

from the the-antithesis-of-evil? dept

Too many companies these days are focused on ways to keep you locked-in somehow or another, so it's quite refreshing to find out that Google is now officially announcing its Data Liberation Front, which does exactly the opposite: systematically helping you to get your data out of Google's services so that it can be used elsewhere. Apparently the group has been working on this for a while, but has only just now been publicly "announced." It's difficult to think of too many other companies that would do the same thing. Of course, it's easy to think of independent or competing companies that might do this -- but we usually hear about the original company suing anyone who tries to free up data. Good move by Google to offer the service itself.

Filed Under: data, open, portability
Companies: google

Should There Be Mandatory Email Address Portability?

from the nope dept

Apparently someone has filed a petition with the FCC to try to have the FCC require email address portability. The idea is that, if you were to change email providers, the old provider would be required to forward your email to a new account. If you go to the link above, Declan McCullough points out seven reasons why it's dumb to mandate this (in part because this is way outside the FCC's scope of authority). However, that doesn't mean it's not a good idea for email providers to offer that service themselves as a differentiator. In the meantime, this doesn't seem like much of a problem for most people. Either they have their own domains or they do a pretty good job of informing anyone who matters whenever they change email addresses.

Filed Under: email, fcc, portability
Companies: fcc