I hope we’re not giving up data just by joining. Here’s how I read what I called the “Wesabe ethos,” from the FAQ:

“Wesabe is a community of people who share our experiences with our money so we can help each other make better financial decisions. We do this by aggregating and analyzing our community members’ personal financial data, and showing tips — recommendations to get the most from our money. These tips and recommendations come from the collective wisdom of our entire community. When one of us figures out how to make a great decision, we all learn.”

To me, the implicit promise here is that my data is to be aggregated and shared only with other like-minded consumers. This is very important to their “trust proposition.” After all, if everyone could see the aggregate data, there would be no reward for sharing your own data.

On the API, looks like you’re right – aggregated data is not open but will be.

Thanks for these thoughts, when I am just looking into Wesabe.

I understand your concern, but still, as a user aren’t you giving up “your data” to the world (Google included) the minute you start participating in a community like Wesabe? And you do get something in return too!

Nonetheless, I do believe that aggregated “consumer spending data” could be a powerful force, which I hope stays on the side of the consumer.

Finally, if I read correctly the Wesabe blog, I got a feeling they will open the API also up on the aggregated data and not just on “my data” for my own use. But maybe I read it wrong…

Best regards,
Marcel