Your Notes Now Have a Legal Right to Leave: What the EU Data Act Means for Note-Takers

For most of the software era, lock-in was how apps worked: your data lived inside someone else's product, and leaving was their decision. The EU Data Act changes the legal default. It has been in force since 11 January 2024 and applicable since 12 September 2025 ¹². The principle it enshrines is one a plain file already had.

The regulation is blunt about the problem it targets. "An ambitious and innovation-inspiring regulatory approach to interoperability is needed to overcome vendor lock-in, which undermines competition and the development of new services" ³. That sentence is law now, not a manifesto. And the deadline with teeth is dated: from 12 January 2027, cloud providers may charge nothing to let a customer switch away ⁴. This is a plain-language explainer, not legal advice — the primary text is linked throughout.

What most people believe about leaving an app

The common assumption is that getting your data out is a favor the vendor grants, governed by whatever export button they chose to build. You can leave if there is a door, and the door's size is the company's call. Under that belief, lock-in is friction, not a violation — an inconvenience you accept when you sign up.

That belief was a fair reading of the world until recently. Export was a feature, ranked alongside dark mode and keyboard shortcuts, and a company optimizing for retention had every incentive to make it narrow. Switching costs were the moat. A note app that made it trivial to walk away was, by the old logic, leaving money on the table.

The pivot: the EU made leaving a right, not a favor

The Data Act reframes leaving as an obligation on the provider, not a courtesy. Its switching chapter is titled, in the regulation's own words, "Removing obstacles to effective switching" — obstacles that "can, inter alia, be of a pre-commercial, commercial, technical, contractual or organisational nature" ⁵. The law names lock-in and instructs providers to dismantle it.

The dates are specific, and worth getting right because secondary coverage often blurs them. The regulation entered into force on 11 January 2024 and "shall apply from 12 September 2025" ¹². For connected products, the data-access obligation in Article 3(1) applies to products "placed on the market after 12 September 2026" ².

The headline switching-fee provision is Article 29: "From 12 January 2027, providers of data processing services shall not impose any switching charges on the customer for the switching process" ⁴.

Read that precisely. It is a ban on switching charges, not a universal "export anything for free" right. Until that date, charges are being tapered, not waived: "From 11 January 2024 to 12 January 2027, providers of data processing services may impose reduced switching charges" ⁶. The fee does not vanish overnight — it phases out, then ends.

The argument: the law forces a principle, it does not hand you the file

Here is the honest limit, because a careful reader reaches it first. The Data Act's switching and portability obligations bind data processing services (cloud) and connected products (IoT) ²⁴. They are not a mandate that every consumer note app export your notes. The law forces the principle of portability; it does not hand you a specific app's contents.

The regulation says why the principle matters in language any locked-in user recognizes. "Unnecessarily high data egress charges and other unjustified charges unrelated to actual switching costs inhibit customers from switching, restrict the free flow of data, have the potential to limit competition and cause lock-in effects for the customers" ⁷. Lock-in is now a named harm. The remedy the law reaches for — open, machine-readable access — is exactly what a plain file already provides.

That open format is written into the text. For connected-product data, the Act requires it to be "easily and securely accessible to a user, free of charge, in a comprehensive, structured, commonly used and machine-readable format" ⁸. A Markdown note meets that description on the day you write it. The law is dragging cloud services toward a property your .md file was born with: there is no proprietary container to pry your sentences out of.

One more distinction, because it gets conflated. The Data Act is not GDPR. GDPR still governs your personal data; the Data Act adds portability and switching rights for cloud and connected-product data, "while ensuring the protection of personal data" ⁹. As the IAPP's Giorgia Vulcano put it, "the act aims to level the playing field by strengthening cloud portability and reducing vendor lock-in, restraining unfair contract terms" ¹⁰. Two regimes, one direction.

The practice: choose tools you can already walk away from

A law forcing exports is good news. A file that never needed one is better insurance. The Data Act's deadlines stretch into 2027; the format you choose this afternoon takes effect immediately. So decide for portability before any regulation has to.

• Write in an open, plain-text format. Markdown is "structured, commonly used and machine-readable" by default — the exact standard the law demands of others ⁸.
• Prefer tools that store the file where you can reach it — on your own device — over tools that hold it on a server you must petition to leave.
• Test the exit before you need it. Open your notes folder in a second program today. If they open clean, you are already portable.
• Treat export as a property of the format, not a feature you hope the vendor shipped.
• Keep a plain copy of anything you would mourn losing. Apps end; files outlast them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the EU Data Act mean for my personal data?

It strengthens your rights to access and move data and to switch cloud providers, but it does not replace GDPR. The European Commission frames the Data Act as advancing "fair access and user rights, while ensuring the protection of personal data" ⁹. GDPR still governs personal data specifically. The Data Act adds portability and switching obligations on top of that.

When did the EU Data Act come into force and become applicable?

The Data Act entered into force on 11 January 2024 and is applicable from 12 September 2025 ¹². Some obligations are phased later: the connected-product data-access duty in Article 3(1) applies to products "placed on the market after 12 September 2026," and the switching-fee ban in Article 29 takes effect on 12 January 2027 ²⁴.

Does the EU Data Act let me export my data from any app?

Not directly. Its switching and portability obligations bind data processing services (cloud) and connected products (IoT), and it mandates "machine-readable" access for connected-product data ⁸⁴. It is not a blanket right to export from any consumer note app. The fair reading is that the law forces the principle of portability — a principle an open file already satisfies.

When do EU Data Act switching fees end or become free?

From 12 January 2027. Article 29(1) states providers "shall not impose any switching charges on the customer for the switching process" ⁴. Before that date, charges are reduced, not eliminated: providers "may impose reduced switching charges" until 12 January 2027 ⁶. There is no separate "10 September 2027" deadline — that date does not appear in the regulation.

Is vendor lock-in illegal in the EU now?

The Act does not criminalize lock-in, but it obliges providers to remove it. Its switching chapter is headed "Removing obstacles to effective switching" ⁵, and a recital states that interoperability "is needed to overcome vendor lock-in, which undermines competition" ³. Lock-in is named as a harm the law actively works to dismantle through portability and fee rules.

Is the EU Data Act the same as GDPR?

No. They are distinct regulations with different scopes. GDPR governs the protection of personal data; the Data Act adds portability and cloud-switching rights for data more broadly, including non-personal and connected-product data. The Commission describes the Data Act as ensuring "the protection of personal data" alongside fair access ⁹, meaning it complements GDPR rather than replacing it.

How do I get my notes out of an app before it shuts down?

Do not wait for an export right; choose a format you already own. If your notes are plain Markdown, they open in any text editor with no special software, so there is nothing to extract. The lasting fix is structural, not legal — see why your notes should outlive your app and what happens when a note company shuts down.

Steph Ango put the durable version of this years before any regulation: "In the fullness of time, the files you create are more important than the tools you use to create them. Apps are ephemeral, but your files have a chance to last" ¹¹. The law is now catching up to a principle local-first writers already lived by.

A right to leave is worth having — but a file you already own never had to stay. In MNMNOTE, notes are stored locally on your own device, in open Markdown, readable in any editor and yours to move whenever you choose.

mnmnote.com

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