Linkedin Blog

Data portability is on a lot of people’s minds right now. You don’t need to be an A-list blogger trying to export your massive friend list to know that your address book is your own, nor to recognize that toting around your network can be cumbersome. You shouldn’t have to reinvent yourself — and rediscover your colleagues — over and over again.

At LinkedIn, we’ve always believed that users should own and control their data. And we’ve walked the walk by offering one-click export of your connections to .csv and .vcf since 2004; using microformats since 2006 to mark up your contacts with XFN + hCard and service provider recommendations with hReview; and in early 2007 we released the first major hResume implementation. It’s not just open formats either. Last year we started building APIs and a developer platform which will soon include support for OpenSocial applications.

LinkedIn is committed to helping professionals be more productive in their everyday work life. These technologies are among the powerful tools that enable us to do this. So it makes sense that we would support efforts like DataPortability.org and Social Network Portability. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned along the way with the community and look forward to learning from the experience of others.

At the same time, we firmly believe in users’ rights to privacy, not only when it comes to who has access to their data but also by which means and for what purpose. Accepting a connection from another does not and should not grant them carte blanche to collect and keep your information for their own purposes — and we know that. And as we join this new conversation, we promise to continue to keep privacy firmly in focus.