[moxiemk1]

When discussing data-portability of social networks, Facebook's data download feature is sometimes brought up.

I periodically use this feature, to see if it has improved any since it's initial disappointing release. As of a few weeks ago, it has not.

A true data download from Facebook would consist of: a machine-readable form of every action I've taken on Facebook (likes, friend requests sent/received, photos I added tags to, photos uploaded, status updates, messages sent/received, comments made, etc.) along with timestamps and at least URIs pointing to the objects referenced (photos, people, etc.) if not a copy of my view of those objects.

(I understand why Facebook might claim they shouldnt give me, for example, dates that other people de-friend me, since that isn't accessible info. However, I do think that copies of statuses I commented on and can still see isn't unreasonable)

What we have now is: A static HTML dump of your profile page, photo page, and messages that is massively incomplete. Since the switch to timeline, fewer actions I have taken in the past seem to qualify for inclusion on my page ("moxiemk1 commented on friend's photo" used to feature more often in my profile than it does now). Since the revamped messages/chat integration, the messages dump (which always eventually cut off at some point in the past) is even smaller, and harder to read.

I would indeed like to have copies of the data I've created, and would like to emphasize that Facebook's "effort" to do so is complete BS.

[grey-area]

When you join facebook you're joining a free to use data-silo, most of which is not open to the internet - the site is predicated on hiding your data from the world (and esp. google), and then selling it on to advertisers and other businesses, sometimes anonymised, sometimes not. Beacon is a perfect example of the sort of uses you can expect them to put your data to in future. All the data from like buttons, your social graph etc, is invaluable to them, and invaluable to advertisers and retailers.

The logical conclusion of that is they have absolutely no incentive to give you your data back, in fact they view that as their data, earned by offering you the service of sharing stuff with your friends, without having to set up your own website. That data is their crown jewels, so I am amazed that anyone would expect them to give it up, or be surprised at their reluctance - this is the very essence of Facebook, and they've done very well out of it.

That's not to say that you should never use Facebook, but just that if you do use a free service like Facebook, you should expect to give up some of your privacy and control over your data in return. If you don't want to do that, it would be better to use another service (which doesn't rely on selling your data as their business model).

[rmc]

If you are not in the USA (and maybe Canada) and you sign up to Facebook, you are signing an agreement with Facebook Ireland Ltd., a company registered in the EU and, hence, subject to EU law.

One part of EU law is that people have the right to access all personal data that a company holds on them. Here's an example of how to make such a request. http://europe-v-facebook.org/

You might claim "people voluntarily choose to join a free service, what right do you have to demand anything?" however that's not how laws work. Facebook is legally obliged to give non-US customers their data.

[grey-area]

That's really interesting, I had no idea they were incorporated in Ireland too and hence sometimes subject to EU law (in theory at least). Thanks for the link. I'm not actually a member, but I'd be interested to see what they produce on other people just to see what sort of data they're holding.

[_delirium]

I believe it's done as a tax dodge, so they can book some of their income in Ireland (which has low corporate taxes). May not have fully realized the privacy-law implications at the time they set that up. Either that or the savings are enough to be worth it.

[Xuzz]

Facebook does not sell user data.

[grey-area]

In the crude sense of collecting all your posts and sending them all to an advertiser, of course not. In the sense of selling your interests, friends, social position, age etc to advertisers as a datapoint, yes they do; that's how they target ads and make money. They also tried to harvest purchasing habits from other sites like Amazon (with Beacon), and give broad access to developers, some of whom abuse the privilege and have been caught selling data on. I'd expect that sort of activity to increase post-IPO. They're not alone in this of course - gmail does the same, without the data lock-in.

[Xuzz]

No, they do not sell interests to advertisers. What they do is allow advertisers to show their ads to people with those specific ages, interests, and such. It's a subtle and important difference: with this method, advertisers only know that their ads are being shown to someone who matches their criteria, not who. Advertisers are not able to correlate your identity with ad targeting.

[mhurron]

They don't have to, they sell access to it. Why would they sell it when they can basically rent out time to access it?

[Xuzz]

No, they sell services using it. Advertisers and others who give Facebook money do not see user information; they just pay to leverage it for effective targeting.

[jmathai]

Do you work at Facebook? :)

I think you're missing the point. Facebook doesn't have to hand out a text file with your name and a list of all your friends for it to be considered "selling your data".

It's considered "selling your data" when you go to an unrelated site and that site gives you customized content based on information you gave to Facebook.

[Xuzz]

That does not happen either; user data is not given to third parties. I do not work at Facebook; however, this has been clearly and repeatedly stated by them (including, I believe, in legal filings).

[aristus]

That's a fair criticism of the feature. I'm sad it hasn't gotten a lot of love. But it's not BS, or a cynical marketing ploy, or what have you. Most projects at FB are executed by a surprisingly small number of people.

FWIW, I'll take a look at the next hackathon.

[AkThhhpppt]

If you need any ammunition to get it looked at more intently, here: http://www.identityblog.com/?p=1201

[brlewis]

Someone has likely written a better download using the FB Graph API. If not I bet someone on HN will write one. http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/

[Sniffnoy]

Annoyingly, it seems the Graph API just can't do much of what it seems it ought to be able to. So far as I can tell, Facebook doesn't offer any convenient way for me to read my friends' information -- that I have access to, on Facebook -- by automated means. (Or other people's info that's publically available.) This means I can't write a tool that makes a contact-info-list for me; if I want to assemble a list of phone numbers, for instance, I have to do it manually. (For phone numbers in particular -- but not for other things -- Facebook used to do this on the website, but this seems to be gone.) Nor can I do simple things like, say, given two people, whose friendslist I can view, determine which friends they have in common. Facebook lets me see mutual friends of me and another person, but not two other people. These are basic tools I should be able to write, but last I checked, the capability just wasn't there.

[tedunangst]

I'm somewhat pleased friends' phone numbers aren't available. It means you don't have to worry about a friend clicking "Click here to backup your phone numbers" scams. Your inability to extract data about your friends is a kind of privacy feature. Automated access to your data, good; automated access to other people's data, bad.

[qznc]

I wrote myself a script, which does this via screen-scraping once. Of course, this is a shaky solution. On the other hand, it does not require me to request an ID from Facebook or give permissions to any third-party app.

[Lewisham]

G+'s Takeout seems to do better. I don't think it has all you want, like friend requests or photos you tagged, but it has a lot.

[atomical]

I had deactivated my Facebook account. After I read your comment I decided to log in and try to get this dump. I waited probably ten minutes and it still hadn't finished. After that period I lost interest in having my Facebook open so I suspended the account which probably canceled the background job. This feature is slow as fuck.

[qznc]

It took a few hours in my case. You don't need to be logged in, though. They sent me an email, when it finished.

I assume they have a low priority batch system to handle these requests.