Ryan Merket’s Blog

The following is a comment I posted on TechCrunch, on Michael Arrington’s post:
Battle Over Data Ownership on Gillmor Gang

Michael said that data portability should not be left in the hands of the big companies…

I think it can be left in a big companies hands as long as the big company keeps user privacy as priority numero uno.

If it wasn’t for Facebook recognizing the fact that there is more to social networking then just data mining, we would never be at this point of, “what is the right way to export the social graph” outside of the “walled gardens.” Facebook has control over the most real social connections and the largest collection of user photos on the internet — all in all they have the most accurate representation of a the social graph, as we know it.

Facebook did NOT get this way by having lax rules on privacy. We all know they have VERY strong privacy regulations. That is NOT the issue, we all feel relatively safe giving Facebook our data…

So why are we so scared to let Facebook rule the Data Portability space? As long as they use open standards, I really don’t see the issue with letting them control how we get our data out…

Someone has to hold the keys to the gate of the walled gardens. Someone has to control that data, store that data on their harddrives and only allow people with the right credentials in — if not you will have a HUGE spam issue.

Why not let the company with the most real social connections, and the company that has kept privacy a top priority?

Why should they allow someone to piggy back (GOOG) on their success and right software to swoop in and undermine what they have been trying to setup for quite awhile?