Microsoft Acts on DataPortability
March 25, 2008
Today Microsoft takes another big step towards Data Portability by announcing their Contacts API for their Live Platform.
To quote John Richards, Director of Live Platform (an active participant in the DataPortability project) from the press release:
“To tackle the issue of contact data portability it is important to reconcile the larger issue of data ownership. Who owns the data, like email addresses in a Windows Live Hotmail address book? We firmly believe that we are simply stewards of customers’ data and that customers should be able to choose how they control and share their data. We think customers should be able to share their data in the most safe and secure way possible, but historically this openness has been achieved largely through a mechanism called “screen-scraping,” which unduly puts customers at risk for phishing attacks, identity fraud, and spam. Now with the Windows Live Contacts API, we have provided an alternative to “screen-scraping” that is equally open but unequivocally safer and more secure for customers. “
This is another strong example of how committed Microsoft is to data portability in general and the DataPortability project specifically.
As things take shape in the DataPortability Project, we will have specific recommendations for Microsoft and all other vendors to make sure that their APIs are seamlessly inter-operable with other DataPortability enabled applications.
March 25, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Agreed Chris, even though Microsoft is using their own APIs, it is still in the spirit of letting their users control their data availability and sharing.
March 25, 2008 at 8:26 pm
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March 25, 2008 at 11:37 pm
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March 26, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Chris,
have you seen that with the new MSN messenger export/import client you get the addresses of all your Facebook friends – that was supposed to be something that wasn’t allowed:
http://www.unodewaal.com/2008/03/26/microsoft-invites-pull-your-address-data-out-of-fb/
March 26, 2008 at 3:59 pm
[…] Canter and others have pointed out that although the Contact APIs from Microsoft are not open in themselves, at least the APIs seem to […]
March 26, 2008 at 9:22 pm
[…] Saad quotes on his blog a press release from John Richards, Director of Live Platform of Microsoft: “To tackle the issue of contact data […]
August 1, 2009 at 10:23 am
Sandra Dalene VanAlstine – Wanted to introduce myself
Thanks
Sandra Dalene VanAlstine
September 21, 2010 at 5:34 am
Be not wrathful that you cannot create others as you predisposition them to be, since you cannot make tracks yourself as you hope to be