Hot on the heels of Twitter affirming that yes, you own your tweets, some Chicago Google engineers have launched “The Data Liberation Front,” with the goal of making it simple to move your data in and out of Google products (Blogger, Gmail, and more, with additional services coming soon).
Enhancing options for data portability is awesome for at least two reasons. First, I can see how storing one’s data “in the cloud” could be a bit disconcerting – what happens if a particular product or service goes under and takes your data with it? Being able to move your data from service to service, or store it locally, ensures that you’ll always be able to access it.
Second, it enables users to choose the service that best meets their needs. Someday, a Webmail service might come out that blows the pants off of Gmail. Should I be forced to use Gmail simply because that’s where all of my data (like contacts and archived mail) is stored?
In a way, enabling people to easily take their data to a competitor shows how confident Google is in their products. They’re betting that giving users the option to easily take their data wherever they want will attract more users than they’ll lose through people doing just that. I think their confidence will be rewarded.
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