Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft, the Silicon Valley giants, have teamed up for the Data Transfer Project (DTP). The project will facilitate the users to be able to move their content, contacts and other forms of data across apps.
DTP plans to build an open source data portability platform that any online service is able to join. Various platforms already let users download their data, however, when it comes to easily upload it and use it elsewhere, the apps fail. This is what DTP will address.
DTP is currently in a very active stage of development and has tested various use-cases. The tool will use the existing APIs and authorization mechanism of service. It will them use service-specific adapters to transfer the data into a common format, and then back into the new service’s API.
While the DTP tool is expected to roll out in the coming months, the partner group has laid out a white paper. The project aims at setting an industry standard for data portability. The standard could be able to force companies to compete on utility they provide to their users, instead of trapping users by data lock-in that makes it tough to switch services.
From a common users’ perspective, DTP tool will help in porting playlists in music streaming services to sharing health data from fitness trackers. It can also help startups explore new areas where the cross transfer of data can be required to popularize new functionalities. This will help companies interoperate user’s existing data without the need for building the functionality from scratch.
