Google wants to make it very easy for you to get all your own “data” out of Google should you want to. Matt Cutts reports how you may easily download all your mail out of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Talk, and so on.

When users get what they want from you quickly and easily, they’re more likely to come back next time. (Shh. Don’t tell anyone else this vital secret.) Part of that is feeling that they aren’t “trapped”–that they can leave you behind if they want.

Not enough web sites/services are open like this. The vast majority want you to contribute lots of data so you’re locked in and unable to switch to another. For example, I wish I could get all my movie ratings and rental history out of Netflix. There doesn’t appear to be away to grab the complete history and Blockbuster and TiVo doesn’t even have any facility to import them if they did.

We should all be pushing companies to allow us to export our own data. When you come across a company that doesn’t allow you to do this complain. Better yet, avoid falling into their trap by finding an alternative service that doesn’t lock you in.

[Not trapping users’ data = GOOD]

Tags: google, user generated data, netflix, rss, gmail, google docs