Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter partner for ambitious new data project
Today, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter joined to announce a new standards initiative called the Data Transfer Project, designed as a new way to move data between platforms. In a blog post, Google described the project as letting users "transfer data directly from one service to another, without needing to download and re-upload it."
The current version of the system supports data transfer for photos, mail, contacts, calendars, and tasks, drawing from publicly available APIs from Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, Remember the Milk, and SmugMug. Many of those transfers could already be accomplished through other means, but participants hope the project will grow into a more robust and flexible alternative to conventional APIs. In its own blog post, Microsoft called for more companies to sign onto the effort, adding that "portability and interoperability are central to cloud innovation and competition."
Also at 9to5Google.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Monday July 23 2018, @07:02AM (4 children)
What? No NSA yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @07:06AM (2 children)
Where the fuck is the ISO? Standards, people? We do not need proprietary ass-rapers making deals about data interoperability. Seriously. NO, Seriously.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 23 2018, @07:22AM
I looked for it behind the "XML and family" specifications, couldn't find it.
Really, is ISO required to have a standard specification? Besides, the ISO does NOT guarantee patent unencumberance [wipo.int] of any standard specification.
That's gonna happen no matter how not-for-profit the steward of a specification is, no matter if ISO or any other.
See the W3C in regards with Encrypted Media Extensions [w3.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 23 2018, @08:06AM
Where is Apple & Amazon? Need them to make it a REALLY GREAT deal. Beat EU foes & GDPR!!!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 23 2018, @04:20PM
No one says the name that must not be mentioned.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 23 2018, @09:57AM
How is anonymity affected? Will this new crap make people more secure, or less so? I strongly suspect that signing up for these services, then linking them so that you can transfer some silly pic, will enable each of the corporations to track you more effectively.
As slow as my internet is, I have little problem with uploading what I want to upload, and downloading what I want to download. If I have something on Facebook, that I want to use on Google - I can already do so. No need to link the two accounts to each other.
Who seriously believes that after you have transferred items between a half dozen, or maybe a couple dozen accounts, the surveillance teams won't KNOW that you are the owner of each of them? At the least, their certainty will jump from ~50% to ~99%. Of course, most people won't have any problem with that. Most are happy to be led like sheep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @10:50AM (1 child)
One thing I haven't seen yet are the requirements to get in to the club. Is this going to be like OAuth, where you can only transfer to specific other services that the current site deems worthy (aka not a threat to their business), or will it be more like OpenID where you can simply specify a URL to any site with a supported API?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 23 2018, @02:17PM
To join the club you must have marketable data to offer.
After all, this is what it is really all about isn't it? Despite all soothing corporate speak to the contrary.
If new tech standards can exchange your data openly in front of you when you consent to it, surely they can then exchange your data secretly, and without your knowledge in exchange for suitable amounts of money changing hands.
This will also help everyone to get a much more complete picture of the entire global human social interconnection graph. Something the NSA would dearly love to have and would pay money for. So look for NSA fronts that want to join the club. Also imagine if the NSA could change your social profile, history and reputation on all platforms at once -- you traitor!
To be part of that social interconnection graph, you don't even have to participate. I've never had any FaceTwit but I bet both Face and Twit and others know everyone who has ME in THEIR contacts list, both email and phone.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 23 2018, @10:51AM (1 child)
-sword?
What I hate the most about the password prompts I dismissed dozens of times each day is that they grab the focus, leading everything else in the UI to be unresponsive.
I filed a bug report [apple.com] about these incessant password dialogs. One of Apple's people told me how to stop them but his suggestions didn't work.
I don't see why I can't just download everything onto my box. Why do I have to throw my personal documents up in the sky where all of Apple's datacenter employees can see them?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @04:33PM
act like a slave and you will get treated like a slave.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @10:56AM
This is crap. Now you no longer can silo your information in 1 system and have the others unaware of it. FB nor MS gets my information. The only time this will be important is when a company goes under or price its to high, that is it.
This for the big players to "steal" your information, and small players (phishers and like) to have open access to the information. YES OPEN ACCESS. You cannot not share information, if you do not have "keya".
Just like the they big agruement that no back door into Crypto... No back doors into personal information.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @11:40AM
IIRC MS only has two market strategies when it doesn't hold a dominant market position, which might be why this sounds *so* familiar ... Deadly Embrace (30 Mar 2000) [economist.com]
(Score: 2) by The Shire on Monday July 23 2018, @01:02PM
Setup a Google account, send a fake transfer request to Microsoft for all the targets data, done.
Nothing good can come of this. It's like connecting Colossus to Guardian in the The Forbin Project.
Also: “We always want to think about user data protection first.” The injection of the word "want" is deliberate - "they want to" is VERY different from "they do".
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday July 23 2018, @03:57PM
-- Hello, I would like you to delete all my private data you have. I no longer consent of you having it.
-- Suure, one moment... just did that for you, done. Now, you might want to know we already transferred your data to 261 other analytica companies, would you like to download the full list?
(Score: 2) by corey on Monday July 23 2018, @11:30PM
This is a boon for them in terms of data aggregation. When authorised and transferred, each of the companies will be able to further aggregate the data they have and develop even closer profiles of their users. Eugh.
People's data is valuable so this exchange is worth a lot of money too.