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Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

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Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#51

Post by bentcorner »

chirau wrote: post #29

A threat of legal action will probably go a long way. I might be wrong, but I think it is actually illegal to withhold people's data upon request, especially if you claim to offer the feature. Also false advertising. I can see how they would try to skirt around it though, they'd probably say that it is a temporary glitch but the functionality is available. That way it wouldn't be them withholding your data or false a…

IANAL but would the GPDR apply here? Gut feeling is that Notion needs to have a way for customers to export their personal data to comply.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#52

Post by kevinslin »

Worst comes to worst, you could export using a library like this one: https://github.com/kjk/notionapi

That being said, definitely not ideal and is always a risk when storing your data with a SaaS service (disclaimer: I'm the founder of dendron.so - a fast open source notion competitor made for developers)

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#53

Post by beprogrammed »

Stands to show a critical problem with relying on SaaS products. "Oh that critical function that we broke? Yeah were not fixing that."

Solution, if it's not built here, we don't rely on it. A lot more work up front, a lot more stable in the long run.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#54

Post by arthurcolle »

dreyfan wrote: post #10

Up next: Someone will read this post, write an exporter, immediately find that Notion's system is handling authentication but not authorization, and dump tens of thousand private notion datasets.

grabs popcorn in anticipation

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#55

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ghayes wrote: post #33
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

I'm not a Notion customer, but frankly with a response like this I would never, ever be one. It's one thing to make a new feature request and have the response be "sorry, we'll get to it when we get to it." It's quite another to have a bug in an advertised, previously working feature, with no workaround, and say "sorry, our engineers have a big backlog." Imagine if a bank said "sorry, we know the withdrawal feature t…

I recently closed a bank account (due to Simple being acquired and the debacle of BBVA and now PNC) and it was quite difficult. I just wanted a "you send me a check with my remaining balance and we're done," and instead they told me I needed to withdraw my cash to zero (with limits that would have taken months), and only then could I close my account. Eventually, I was told a workaround where I could "Bill Pay" my ow…

But two points on this:

1. First off, the Simple/BBVA debacle did receive so much press because the switchover was so royally f'd. The very fact that this bad of a screwup was something so unexpected/unusual is a big reason it received so much press.

2. They did provide (eventually) a workaround. Given the current top comment it looks like Notion may have a workaround as well, but regardless, the answer from support for a bug like this should always be "we'll get you a fix ASAP, even if we need to manually work around it", not "sorry but our engineers have a big backlog".

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#57

Post by dheera »

shados wrote: post #43
rglover wrote: post #7

Depending on what you need, they have an API and a pseudo exporter could likely be built: https://developers.notion.com/reference/intro . Not great, but better than being stuck.

How much will you be able to export before getting rate limited to death though?

The rate limit is 3 requests per second (https://developers.notion.com/reference/errors). If your pages are in the thousands you are still looking at only a couple hours.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#58

Post by makeitdouble »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

I'm not a Notion customer, but frankly with a response like this I would never, ever be one. It's one thing to make a new feature request and have the response be "sorry, we'll get to it when we get to it." It's quite another to have a bug in an advertised, previously working feature, with no workaround, and say "sorry, our engineers have a big backlog." Imagine if a bank said "sorry, we know the withdrawal feature t…

> Imagine if a bank said "sorry, we know the withdrawal feature to get your money is broken, but our engineers have a big backlog." Unbelievable!

That happens a bit more than we would want to.

There was an (several?) incident with Mizuho bank in Japan. During system errors they'd swallow clients cards and wouldn't give them back until a the client asks for it in person at the counter (so, a few days later when it happens on the weekend)

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#59

Post by sebmellen »

boplicity wrote: post #40

Here's what Notion.so says about this on their website. https://www.notion.so/Back-up-your-data-1a8eb5bdfce34d19a636... - *I tried clicking the `Export all workspace content` button but received an error message.* Oof, so sorry about this For particularly large workspaces, the `Export all workspace content` function may have some trouble completing the export. We're investigating this issue and hope to have a resolut…

God, if there’s one thing I hate it’s that condescending millennial speak to cover up a serious issue.

> Oof, so sorry about this...

What??? If your company is broken don’t make it seem like a funny “aw shucks” blunder.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#60

Post by Xunjin »

josephg wrote: post #23

This is truly awful, and honestly shouldn't surprise anyone given the modern cloud approach to software. I've been thinking a lot lately about ownership. If I have a book, I can interact with it the way the publisher expects (I can read it). But being a physical object, I can also do lots of other things with my book. I can burn it. I can give it to a friend. I can sell it. I can draw in it. I can rip it up and use i…

Indeed you have a great point here, as I can simplify, you do not own your data, you buy allocation of certain service, like you said about Amazon ebooks.

Indeed I'm a guy who balances more between freedom instead of making it rigidly by laws, however the "Tech World" really needs "foundational directives" where all companies should abide.

Like John Locke defines, as I remember, that you have a "natural right" to Life.

Why not make an analogy here...

Right to Life - Your data is yours.

Right to Liberty - Your data goes where you want.

Right to Property - help me here lol

Idk we really should start to think more about privacy to all people, and where the top ones do with them.

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