The Data Transfer Project
&gt; A user’s decision to move data to another service should not result in any loss of transparency or control over that data.<p>&gt; It is worth noting that the Data Transfer Project doesn’t include any automated deletion architecture. Once a user has verified that the desired data is migrated, they would have to delete their data from their original service using that service’s deletion tool if they wanted the data deleted.<p>This project has copy, not move semantics.  Therefore, in contrast to the stated purpose of allowing users to control their data, it actually has the opposite consequence of making it simpler to spread users&#x27; data around.  Without a delete capability, the bias is towards multiple copies of user data.<p>This project normalizes web scraping to export data from non-participating APIs that project partners benefit from asymmetrically by establishing this as an open-source effort.  In other words, API providers that do not provide export tools will nonetheless be subject to DTP adapters that exfiltrate data and send it to the (no doubt excellent) DTP importers maintained by DTP partners.  This has the effect of creating a partial vacuum, sucking data from non-participants into participants&#x27; systems.<p>The economics of maintaining a high-volume bidirectional synchronization pipeline between DTP partners guarantees that these toy DTP adapters will not be the technology used to copy data between DTP partners, but rather, a dedicated pathway will be established instead.  In other words, the public open-source DTP effort could be understood as a facade designed to create a plausible reason for why DTP partners have cross-connected their systems.<p>TLDR:<p>- Copy semantics are counterproductive to the goal of providing user control of their data.<p>- The approach of using existing APIs to scrape data from non-participating vendors is a priori hostile.<p>- Economics dictate that the lowest cost option for providing bidirectional synchronization between vendors involve dedicated links and specialized transport schemes that DTP project itself does not provide equally.<p>There is some merit to providing abstract representations of common data formats -- look at EDI, for instance. I&#x27;d welcome someone from the project stopping by to explain away my concerns.