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A Central Hub or Cog in the Machine?

"The problem is not that the user can (and must be able to) choose to access their data from Facebook on a 3rd party site," said Chris Saad, co-founder of the Data Portability Project and VP of strategy at Echo. "The problem is that Facebook has architected the whole thing from the beginning to be an exclusive hub and spoke relationship with them rather than a peer to peer relationship on the open web."

According to Saad, Facebook's intentions are simple – to get third-party sites and apps to rely entirely on Facebook for user information. "It's like giving a taster," he said. "Paying comes later."