The development of the Internet industry requires better data portability and interoperability between manufacturers. Recently, Google announced a plan to promote data migration. In 2018, Google is preparing to invest $3 million and more engineering manpower to advance various projects in the field of portability, including the DTP program (Data Transfer Project) that Google participated in in 2018.
Google’s new plan
According to reports, a major background of Google’s move is that legislatures in many countries and regions have begun to pay more and more attention to the barriers to Internet service switching and interoperability, and to remove these barriers from the market, thereby promoting competition among manufacturers. The means for this reform include new digital industry legislation, specific competition reforms, and enhanced regulatory enforcement, or a combination of all three.
In an official blog post, Google stated that it will invest more time and money in data portability and that Google plans to add “open source libraries” that facilitate the transfer of various types of data so that more companies and institutions can participate in the DTP program.
Google also cited company policy plans in this area, including exerting leverage to influence industry rules and systems before countries enact legislation.
In the European Union, lawmakers are finalizing the details of the implementation of the Digital Markets Act, which will touch various Internet platforms that currently have a lot of influence, including Google. This detailed regime will include various day-to-day operational requirements, including data interoperability provisions, mandatory requirements, etc.
In addition to the EU, other countries and regions (including the United Kingdom, Australia and South Korea) are also taking relevant remedies and implementing antitrust measures to force Internet giants to become more open and remove the barriers of digital markets.
In the United States, in recent years, the Federal Trade Commission has also begun to focus on data portability from a consumer or market competition perspective. It is worth mentioning that many of Google’s businesses have been subject to antitrust investigations or charges by the US government.
In the aforementioned blog post, Google said it will continue to upgrade existing data porting tools, such as “Google Takeout.” Google said it would use DTP technology to allow users to transfer personal files to different service providers.
Google disclosed that every month, users use the Takeout tool to complete as many as 8.2 million personal data transfers, and the number of files transferred by users in 2021 will be 400 billion, doubling from 2019.
Google also said that it will continue to support other institutions and researchers in developing data portability and interoperability technologies, and cooperate with each other to develop industry-wide standards and guidelines for major issues.
Three Principles
Google has put forward three important principles for the company in the field of data portability. The first is to support standards for the most common data types to meet consumer migration needs. Google will especially support the migration of mainstream information, such as personal photos, playlists, and communications. record.
Internet data migration is also good for Google itself. For example, users of Spotify, the world’s largest online music service, can more easily migrate their personal playlists to “Google Play Music”, and users of the well-known mobile social tool Instagram can also migrate massive photos to the “Google Photos” service. . Of course, more convenient data migration conditions will also make some Google users flow to competitors.
The second important principle proposed by Google is that data portability must be reciprocal. That is, Internet platforms that allow users to move in data should also allow users to move data out, which will encourage consumers to try different service providers without worrying about losing their own historical data.
Google’s above concerns are not groundless. In the European Union, for example, lawmakers are drafting the EU Data Law, which promotes data reuse, and in the Internet of Things, which encourages data sharing between connected devices. However, according to a provision of the draft law, important Internet platforms, defined as “gatekeepers”, cannot obtain third-party data through migration. The purpose of this clause is to limit the market influence of important platforms. Under this provision, Google risks being squeezed out of the future IoT data exchange market.
The third principle proposed by Google is to attach importance to personal privacy protection and network security. Google said laws and regulations on data porting should prevent bad behavior, such as unauthorized access, data drift or other fraudulent practices. Actions against these bad behaviors can include account authentication, data encryption, and delayed migration.
Coincidentally, in the past, the American social networking giant Meta has repeatedly warned that data portability is difficult to achieve, which may sacrifice user privacy and security. The company even said that the “Cambridge Analytica scandal” in the past (where the personal privacy of tens of millions of users was leaked) also showed that too much data opening is a disadvantage for users’ privacy and security.
In this regard, Google also wants to influence data porting legislation, so that Google can impose some conditions on data porting in the name of privacy or security.
Some industry voices believe that, like Meta, Google will use user privacy as a means to block laws and regulations that promote Internet competition through open data. But in fact, in Google’s data mining and online advertising empire, Google has been slow in ensuring user privacy and security.