Apple Joins Data Transfer Project With Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter

[MacRumors]

Apple has joined the Data Transfer Project, an initiative launched in 2018 to develop an open-source service-to-service data portability platform to allow people to easily move their data between online service providers.

As The Verge notes, Apple is now listed as a contributor alongside Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and others.

Apple will build systems that will make it easy to add and remove data from iCloud, similar to Google Takeout and Facebook's Access Your Information tool, which are compatible with one another and allow data to be downloaded to your hard drive.

Data Transfer Project is an open source initiative to encourage participation of as many Providers as possible. DTP will enhance the data portability ecosystem by reducing the infrastructure burden on both service providers and users which should in turn increase the number of services offering portability. The protocols and methodology of DTP enable direct, service-to-service data transfer with streamlined engineering work.

Eventually, the Data Transfer Project hopes that data will be able to be transferred directly from service to service with no need to download the data first.

Since the Data Transfer Project launched in July 2018 with Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft on board, 18 contributors from a combination of partners and the open source community have inserted more than 42,000 lines of code and changed more than 1,500 files, and new framework features and APIs have been added.

Article Link: Apple Joins Data Transfer Project With Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter

 

[AlliFlowers]

The easier it is to move data around, particularly between Apple, Google, and Microsoft - the better for everyone.

 

[SoN1NjA]

Surprised Apple’s on board with this since they love to lock you down

Remember the nightmare it was to leave iMessage?!

 

[konqerror]

Surprised Apple’s on board with this since they love to lock you down

I think this is just a "checking the box" exercise so they can tell regulators you can, in order to head off another heavy handed GDPR-type government regulation.

What are you going to do with your downloaded Facebook posts and Google Search History, upload them to iCloud? Even though you can move your e-mails from Gmail to Outlook, you're not going to switch because doing so would involve changing your e-mail address. They've already got you locked in via non-data means.

 

[itsmilo]

The first person that tells me how to delete messages from iCloud messages gets a cookie.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Portability and user control of their data is a good thing.

 

[CarlJ]

The first person that tells me how to delete messages from iCloud messages gets a cookie.

Before giving the cookie to the user, you'll have to put up one of those banners advising them of your use of cookies.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

The first person that tells me how to delete messages from iCloud messages gets a cookie.

iMessage doesn't use cookies.

You delete individual messages from iCloud the same way you delete them if you don't use iCloud.

If you're asking about deleting the entire iCloud messages database...

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, tap Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Manage Storage > Messages. Then tap Disable & Delete.

Chocolate chip, please!

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I think this is just a "checking the box" exercise so they can tell regulators you can, in order to head off another heavy handed GDPR-type government regulation.

What are you going to do with your downloaded Facebook posts and Google Search History, upload them to iCloud? Even though you can move your e-mails from Gmail to Outlook, you're not going to switch because doing so would involve changing your e-mail address. They've already got you locked in via non-data means.

As they sometimes say, the best defense is a good offense. Voluntarily giving, say, 80% of what the regulators might have required is still pretty good. More to the point, voluntarily giving customers worldwide what GDPR has already mandated is pretty darned good; certainly better than anything certain regulation-averse countries would mandate.

I think there's another factor at play - as much as services want to hold onto willing customers, there's also a cost to indefinitely maintaining server resources for customers who have moved on but left their data behind because there's no easy way for them to move it. The GDPR mandate to allow account deletion does have a silver lining for these companies.

I agree, this is a lot harder to do with email and text messaging archives than it is for photos and the kind of stuff that's stored in Google Drive/iCloud Drive, etc. I wouldn't expect to integrate my old email archive into my next email account - all sorts of confusion could take place. All I want is to have a searchable archive of that mail, so that I can refer to it when necessary.

Meantime, Apple's explanation of why they don't offer iMessage archives is that it's end-to-end encrypted. They'd need to provide the end-user with a tool for extracting the message archive from their device.

 

[itsmilo]

iMessage doesn't use cookies.

You delete individual messages from iCloud the same way you delete them if you don't use iCloud.

If you're asking about deleting the entire iCloud messages database...


Chocolate chip, please!

what if I just want to delete one thread or attachments? And if I deactivate iCloud Messages I have to basically leave it off for 30 days for them to actually be deleted? The whole thing is just stupid on top of the used storage never matching

 

[trusso]

The easier it is to move data around, particularly between Apple, Google, and Microsoft - the better for everyone.

Portability and user control of their data is a good thing.

Hmm...

I can't be the only one that actually smells something fishy here.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

The easier it is to move data around, particularly between Apple, Google, and Microsoft - the better for everyone.

Especially for the goverment.

 

[4487549]

I'd rather have compatibility with local 32-bit apps than Facebook data in the cloud

 

[AlliFlowers]

Especially for the goverment.

They are more than welcome to a copy of my dissertation draft.

 

[trusso]

Especially for the goverment.

I would "like" your post, but that might give the wrong impression to the uncritical passerby. THIS is exactly the problem. Government, big-business, bad actors.

They are more than welcome to a copy of my dissertation draft.

I'm sure you mean well, but it's exactly this type of thinking - "I have nothing to hide" - that allows increasing encroachments upon personal liberties. The "not my problem" argument is why the world is always going to hell-in-a-handbasket (and to be honest, it's more than a little bit shameful).

 

[AlliFlowers]

I would "like" your post, but that might give the wrong impression to the uncritical passerby. THIS is exactly the problem. Government, big-business, bad actors.

I'm sure you mean well, but it's exactly this type of thinking - "I have nothing to hide" - that allows increasing encroachments upon personal liberties. The "not my problem" argument is why the world is always going to hell-in-a-handbasket (and to be honest, it's more than a little bit shameful).

There is no Big Brother. Paranoia and hysteria don't solve anything.

 

[trusso]

There is no Big Brother. Paranoia and hysteria don't solve anything.

No - you are correct - but there are human beings in positions of immense power, often hidden from view, who are capable of great good as well as great evil.

Hysteria and paranoia solve nothing, I agree. However, one can and should exercise healthy critical judgement as a matter of course. To do less, it seems to me, is to abdicate one of the very things that make us agents of our own life.