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Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

takeout.google.com

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Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#61

Post by rpdillon »

lorenzhs wrote: post #31
acdha wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say something negative about Google you’ll reliably get downvotes from Android fanboys even if it’s completely accurate. (Apple has similar fans, although they seem to be less defensive now that the company is doing so well) It’s not worth worrying over except as a reminder that rating systems need to handle bad-faith voting.

This doesn't mirror my experience at all, and I think blaming it on fanboys isn't fair. I used Google Takeout recently, had it set to split into 50GB tar.gz chunks, and it worked perfectly fine. I wasn't logged out once, and downloaded the archive with around 90 MB/s (720 mbps). It was a very smooth data export experience. I'm very much not a Google/Android fanboy and avoid Google's services wherever possible. The OP…

I just finished the process last night for about 80GB of photos and GP's comment represents my experience very well. It took hours of tedious clicking and logging in dozens of times to get through it. Miserable.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#62

Post by ohmaigad »

remus wrote: post #34
neallindsay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For GDPR purposes, data is PII if it can be used in combination with any other data to identify an individual. By that definition, all data is PII. There is no information available on this planet that has not been influenced by people. I'm not trying to be obtuse. I worry about this problem a lot. Obviously we need to keep companies from doing stupid stuff like storing the first digit of a Social Security number (…

> By that definition, all data is PII. There is no information available on this planet that has not been influenced by people. I think that is a step too far. For example, it seems quite clear that a dataset of daily average temperatures from the top of Everest is not personally identifying information.

Black hair = PII, address = PII, drives black BMW = PII, any of this information together with other information could be used to identify an individual and that is exactly the issue. It is like saying that one brick is a house just because multiple bricks can make a house. If you gather enough data you can potentially point to specific individual. Just like unique PC fingerprinting - gather enough data points so that the fingerprint is unique.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#63

Post by scrollaway »

raldi wrote: post #54
scrollaway wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... what. You're complaining about the one way google users have to reclaim data that is rightfully theirs? You know that if "big brother" wants data, big brother gets backdoors, not polite export requests?

I’m not complaining. I’m marveling at the clever solution to the problem of, “How do we get hundreds of product teams to support our legal obligations without feeling morally conflicted?”

What you're saying makes absolutely no sense and doesn't pass Occam's razor. Please back it with some semblance of reasoning at least.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#64

Post by rpdillon »

raldi wrote: post #54
scrollaway wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... what. You're complaining about the one way google users have to reclaim data that is rightfully theirs? You know that if "big brother" wants data, big brother gets backdoors, not polite export requests?

I’m not complaining. I’m marveling at the clever solution to the problem of, “How do we get hundreds of product teams to support our legal obligations without feeling morally conflicted?”

As a programmer, I would feel morally conflicted if my photo service didn't offer a way for users to get their photos in bulk.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#65

Post by raldi »

scrollaway wrote: post #63
raldi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not complaining. I’m marveling at the clever solution to the problem of, “How do we get hundreds of product teams to support our legal obligations without feeling morally conflicted?”

What you're saying makes absolutely no sense and doesn't pass Occam's razor. Please back it with some semblance of reasoning at least.

Could you elaborate on that? Do you disagree that Google Takeout is used for government user-data requests, or that absent such functionality, programmers tend to balk at implementing such requests?

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#66

Post by raldi »

rpdillon wrote: post #64
raldi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not complaining. I’m marveling at the clever solution to the problem of, “How do we get hundreds of product teams to support our legal obligations without feeling morally conflicted?”

As a programmer, I would feel morally conflicted if my photo service didn't offer a way for users to get their photos in bulk.

Exactly. That’s what makes it such a tidy solution.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#67

Post by tasubotadas »

MertsA wrote: post #19

Another fun one. Go into Facebook and download your data and look in the ads folder. There's a very helpful "advertisers_who_uploaded_a_contact_list_with_your_information.html" page that lists every advertiser who somehow obtained your contact data and ran targeted ads to you. There's a lot of sketchy companies out there who I never had any kind of relationship with who somehow managed to obtain email or other contac…

Please add link

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#68

Post by 101011 »

mtnGoat wrote: post #60
rpdillon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished found through the takeout process for photos last night. 39 2GB archives. Request took a couple of days to process, then I got an email with a bunch of links that they said were good for 7 days. I planned to load them into my Synology download manager, but the takeout system seems to rely heavily on browser state, so Synology couldn't download them. Each took 5 minutes to download at home over WiFi, a…

Almost like they made the ux really hard to use for a reason, eh? All that engineering talent and that's the best solution? Lol.

More like, they're just wanting to make sure they're legally covered. There is no added benefit for the company in making that experience better.

Source: working on a product engineering team for a larger company. Why would we upheave our roadmap for something that doesn't help provide explicit value to our product offerings? We've got a list a mile long of improvements and new capabilities to deliver on, and no engineer likes working through legal hoops anyways.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#69

Post by karlicoss »

ir77 wrote: post #44

i'm very curious about something -- people here rave about the takeout -- does anyone actually use the thing? i've tried the takeout option about a year ago when i wanted to switch from google photos to apple photos and it was an absolute mess, it exported random zipped folders, all broken up (i think there were 14 of thema ll together), multiple images were duplicates, somehow it managed to corrupt apple format of p…

I think breaking up is a ZIP limitation (max archive size is 4GB)

I'm exporting it regularly (although I certainly don't have 120Gb of photos on it). You can choose an option for regular exports (every two months), and delivery method (e.g. Google Drive). Then I have a script that runs daily, mounts google drive, moves the takeout locally if it's present and removes from google drive (so it doesn't take space).

Then indeed, inside you have mess with some data in HTML, some in JSON, etc. But well, at least you can parse it... I have a library which I'm using as an API to various data exports, in particular, archived takeouts too (so I don't even have to unpack them to access)

- https://github.com/karlicoss/HPI/blob/master/my/google/takeo...

- https://github.com/karlicoss/HPI/blob/master/my/location/goo...

- https://github.com/karlicoss/HPI/blob/master/my/media/youtub...

Described this in more detail here: https://beepb00p.xyz/my-data.html#takeout

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