Competition is at the Heart of Facebook's Privacy Problem

[Commentary] Americans should have rights to and control over their data. If we don’t like a service, we should be free to move our data to another. The same network effect that creates value for people on Facebook can also lock them into Facebook’s walled garden by creating barriers to competition. People who may want to leave Facebook are less likely to do so if they aren’t able to seamlessly rebuild their network of contacts, photos, and other social graph data on a competing service or communicate across services. Data portability would reduce barriers to entry online by giving people tools to export their network—rather than merely downloading their data—to competing platforms with the appropriate privacy safeguards in place. Interoperability would facilitate competition by enabling communication across networks in the way the Open Internet was designed to work. The bottom line: Unless consumers gain meaningful control over their personal information, there will be continue to be persistent barriers to competition and choice online.

[Rep David Cicilline is the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary's Antitrust Subcommittee. Terrell McSweeny is an outgoing Democratic commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission. McSweeny's views are her own and do not represent an official FTC position.]