The DataPortability Report

30th January 2008

Since the founding of the DataPortability movement in November 2007, a significant amount of attention has been paid to the project, especially following Robert Scoble's attempt to extract the personal data of his Facebook Friends, on January 2^nd 2008.

The following week saw an upsurge of interest that has changed the scope of the original DataPortability initiative. Hundreds of new voices have now joined the discussion - including representatives from large vendors. The fundamental goals of the project, however, remain the same:Create a story that puts existing work into context, detail the story in Blueprints and then share the story with the world. At all times try to invent as little as possible and ensure that existing work gets all due credit and attention.

More at: http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/web/charter

Highlights this month:

1. Support from Major Vendors
   The DataPortability initiative has received the open endorsement of several prominent companies and individuals. They include Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Six Apart, Plaxo, Flickr, Twitter and others. Each of these companies in public and in private, have committed different resources for the success of DataPortability. At a minimum, however, an official representative is to participate in the Action Groups.

To date however, participation from the major vendors or their representatives has been light to non-existent. This is of minor concern, however we hope and expect this to change once the Blueprints begin taking shape.

We plan to remain transparent about the participation (or lack-there-of) of all stakeholders in the ecosystem to ensure that the vision of DataPortability is actively pursued and implemented.

1. Responding to criticism
   Some criticism has been made of specific parts of the project. In response we have initiated the following changes:
   1. Slogan Change
      To better reflect a focus on control and privacy, the slogan on the front page has been changed from "sharing is caring" to "Connect. Control. Share. Remix". The "Sharing is Caring" slogan was actually targeted at vendors but has been misunderstood to imply social networking and sharing of personal data.
   2. Naming Names
      Criticism was made of the list of names on the front page, suggesting that the list only served to stroke egos. We have removed the names from the front page.
   3. Where's the beef?
      Many have called for more explicit explanation of the groups value in the ecosystem. The group has gone to great lengths to explain the value in interviews and in the documents produced in the Google Group (http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/web/). The key message being that the group is to act as a sort of PR department for the movement which will define a message (the Technical and Policy Blueprints) based on existing work being done by standards groups and promote that message to vendors, end-users and developers. More work to clarify this relationship will be done in the coming months.
   4. Large vendor hype
      Many question the intention and motivation of the large vendors who have recently joined the project. We intend to hold each DataPortability Project member accountable for their actions in regular reports like this one. Large vendors may or may not deploy our recommendations - that is their choice. In the end, however, those that act quickly to roll out true Data Portability will have first-mover advantage in the emerging Data Web. The project continues to move forward irrespective of the choices of any particular participant(s).

Additional progress this month has included:

1. Action Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/web/action-groups)
   Responding to the large influx of new voices and in order to improve the signal/noise ratio, the general 'Workgroup' is being de-emphasised in favor of the Action Groups. At this time, the project has created five role specific Action Groups. They are:

1. 1. The Steering Action Group, which will contain representatives from standards groups and DataPortability Action Groups. This action group is tasked with setting the structure and strategy of the DataPortability Project.
   2. The Technical Action Group, which has been tasked with creating a Technical Blueprint to define Data Portability. These Blueprints will be one of the primary deliverables of the DataPortability Project.
   3. The Policy Action Group, which has been tasked with creating a Policy Blueprint. This group will largely feed off of issues identified by the Technical action group, as well as other discussions about broader issues such as privacy, user rights, and law, and more.
   4. The Evangelism Action Group, which is tasked with managing all internal and external content, collaboration, and communications. This group maintains documentation, manages media relations, and develops information products that ensure consistent message and effective collaboration between the Action Groups.
   5. The Implementation Action Group, which is tasked with assisting developers in implementing the given standards and blueprints that enable Data Portability.

Each action group has begun self organizing, including developing their own road maps and action plans. Some of these will be discussed below.

Leadership by existing standards leaders
While membership to all Action Groups is open to anyone, leaders from all the existing standards groups/bodies (Such as W3C, Higgins, Identity Commons, Microformats, OpenID, etc.) have been personally invited to the steering group to help guide and influence the direction of the project. At its core, the DataPortability Project is designed to highlight and effect wide scale adoption of their work.

1. Scaling up
   Further responding to the large influx of interested parties, the DataPortability initiative is now completely open and transparent. Discussions by action groups occur in dedicated Google Groups and Skype chats - accessible to anyone. Membership of the action groups is open to all. Leadership is allowed to emerge organically based on merit and participation.
2. Road maps and Deliverables are being set

1. 1. The Evangelism Action Group has developed a comprehensive set of responsibilities and has started a number of projects to help promote the activities of the DataPortability group and other standards groups as well. http://groups.google.com/group/dataportabilityactionevangelism
   2. The Technical Action Group has developed a road map and is now researching the functional areas of the Blueprint (http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/web/functional-parts)
   3. The Implementation Action Group has started to generate a toolkit for developers who wish to implement any of the open standards currently being discussed as part of the DataPortability stack. The group continue to build resources to support implementation of DataPortability technologies - particularly once the Technical Blueprint takes shape.

Plan for February 08

The month of February 2008 will be focused on executing the first task on each of the Action Group road maps. This includes defining the Functional Parts of the Technical Blueprint, defining the possible Security problems with DataPortability, starting regular updates to the community through blogs and tweets and further refining the Implementation Toolbelt (http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/web/dp-code).\\