It may be easier to move to other platforms next year thanks to changes coming to Google Takeout

Google Takeout, the tool we all use (or should be using) to backup all of our Google Account data, may soon undergo a long overdue upgrade. The proposed enhancements aim to streamline the process of exporting your data to other platforms – hallelujah!

Google has been under the lens as of late for how “portable” its user data is – or rather how portable it isn’t. In a report from Reuters today, these concerns have led to a dialogue between Google and an Italian startup that complained about how closed off the company’s ecosystem truly seems when it comes to escaping it.

In response, the big G is considering features and improvements that allow you to move your information out of its services and into other provider’s platforms (including user-generated Search and YouTube data). It’s worth noting that Takeout already provides your data in open source and commonly used formats like .docx, .json, .html, .jpg, .png, and more, but if you’ve ever tried to move your stuff elsewhere, you’ll know that having everything is hardly helpful compared to a tailored solution that would plug it into the alternate service provider’s apps and platform seamlessly.

The proposed updates might build on the principles of Google’s “Data Transfer Initiative“, which was first announced last March. The project focuses on automating much of what we’ve spoken about here today, and does its best to take the burden off of you to manually move things from one place to another.

Google’s “direct service-to-service portability solution”, if it comes to fruition, is expected to be all set up in the early part of next year. Although there’s no official announcement yet, this means users win in the end, but unfortunately, it’s once again up to everyone but Google to make sure policies change. Having regulators twist the tech giant’s arm each year is getting tiring, and much of its commitment to its users’ wellbeing comes as a result of this pressure, not its own desire to provide solutions that value us first.