Google Launches Takeout Service

For instance, if you were one of the few who lost their Gmail contacts back in February, you know first-hand the value of backing up. Takeout makes it much easier: Contacts and Circles are saved as .vcf files known as vCard files for storing contact information including names, addresses and phone numbers. It's an open format that works with both Windows and Mac OSX programs.

While it may seem as even though Google is encouraging users to take their business elsewhere, the DLF members say that they don't want you to transfer your data away from Google, in other words it's important that you know you can.