Facebook makes users' data portable

Social networking site Facebook is following rival MySpace's lead by letting users transfer their personal profiles to other websites.

Facebook on Friday said it will implement a system that allows its 70 million users to copy pictures, personal information and other customized applications established on its site to other websites without additional effort.

Users' privacy settings on Facebook will also remain in effect on external websites.

"We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data," wrote Dave Morin on the social networking site's developer blog. "It's about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings."

Facebook's larger rival, MySpace, made a similar announcement on Tuesday. The social networking site, which has 120 million users, said it will allow users to move their profiles and media to partner websites, which so far include Yahoo Inc., eBay Inc., Photobucket and Twitter.

One of Facebook's initial partners will be news-ranking site Digg.com. Morin said Facebook will add more partners.

Both websites said it will still be a few weeks before they implement their systems.