Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
In 2018, Google, Facebook / Meta, Microsoft, and Twitter teamed up to announce the Data Transfer Project, which worked on tools to help users “transfer data directly from one service to another, without needing to download and re-upload it.” Since then, Apple has signed on, while other integrated services include Google Photos, Mastodon, and SmugMug, in addition to the various data export and transfer tools available from the original four companies.
This week, Google provided an update on its participation, pledging $3 million in funding and “hundreds” of hours of work from engineers over the next five years to work on the open-source libraries that keep the project going.
The Data Transfer Project plays a part in tools that you can use…
