Publisher, Mechanical Turk and the EU Data Act: could you still open your data?

If the program that made a file stopped working tomorrow, could you still open the file?

In March I wrote about what Germany got right about open formats. The German government decided that its documents must be stored in open formats, not Microsoft's. I argued that the same reasoning applies to your backups.

Three stories from the last month test that argument from different sides. One is about a file format, one is about a service and one is about a law. Let's go through them.

1. Microsoft is retiring Publisher on 1 October 2026

As a school student in the 1990s, one of the applications I couldn't live without was Microsoft Publisher. It was simple, offering easy WYSIWYG layout that enabled me to lay out text and images beautifully, at a time when desktop publishing was still new. In the 2000s, I made the brochures for BackupAssist in Publisher. And now, Microsoft Publisher is being discontinued at the age of 35.

Microsoft's support page says that after 1 October, Microsoft 365 subscribers will not be able to access Publisher. That means they can no longer open or edit Publisher (.pub) files in Publisher. If you own the perpetual version, you can still install and use it. Microsoft ends support for it on 13 October.

Microsoft's advice is to convert your files first. There are 3 routes, and none of them keeps the file as it was:

1. Save as PDF. You can view the file. You can't edit it.
2. Save as PDF, then open the PDF in Word. Microsoft warns that the layout "may vary from the original PDF", especially if the file has many graphics.
3. Use a third-party converter. Microsoft says these "vary in quality and capabilities" and that it does not support them.

But what if you have many Publisher files? The good folks at Microsoft wouldn't leave you stranded, would they? Of course not: Microsoft provides a PowerShell script for converting many files at once. Its first instruction is to make sure you have "a working and licensed version of Publisher installed". Oh… and after 1 October, subscribers won't be able to run it, so the conversion has to happen before then.

To find the files, Microsoft suggests searching for ".pub" on the PC, OneDrive and SharePoint. On a file server, do the same.

Your backups hold these files too. A restore will give you the .pub file exactly as it was. It won't give you a program that opens it.

2. Amazon is closing Mechanical Turk on 30 September

Mechanical Turk is Amazon's marketplace where businesses pay people small amounts to do small tasks, such as labelling data or transcribing audio. It launched in 2005. On 25 August Amazon announced that it will close the service on 30 September. That is about 5 weeks' notice. Mechanical Turk had already closed to new customers on 30 July. The closure also ends the Mechanical Turk worker option in SageMaker Ground Truth and Amazon Augmented AI.

Amazon's closure FAQ covers 3 things:

1. Refunds, which arrive within 30 days.
2. Approving work and paying bonuses, which can be done until 30 October.
3. Transaction history, which stays available until 28 January 2027.

It has no section on exporting your task results.

Another answer on the same page says how long Amazon keeps task results: "MTurk will remove HITs and corresponding Assignment data from your account after 120 days." A HIT is Mechanical Turk's word for one task. If you need the data for longer than that, the answer says, "we recommend you download the HIT results and store them locally."

So Amazon's own advice to its customers is to keep their own copy.

In May I wrote that when a traditional SaaS vendor terminates an account, there is usually "a wind-down period and a data export window". Here the wind-down is 5 weeks. The FAQ says nothing about what happens to your results after 30 September.

3. The EU's new data access rule started on 12 September

The EU Data Act has applied since 12 September 2025. On 12 September 2026 another part of it started.

After that date, connected products newly placed on the EU market, such as vehicles, farm machinery and smart home devices, have to be built so that their data is accessible to the user by default. Article 3(1) says the data must be available "easily, securely, free of charge, in a comprehensive, structured, commonly used and machine-readable format".

The Act also covers cloud services, which it calls "data processing services". If a customer switches to another provider of the same type of service, and the EU has not yet published an interoperability standard for that type, the provider must, when the customer asks, export "all exportable data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format". From 12 January 2027, providers can't charge for the switch.

The Act has limits. Exportable data excludes intellectual property or trade secrets of the provider or third parties. Direct access applies "where relevant and technically feasible". And the Act covers products and services offered in the EU.

For the format of your data, the test in both articles is "commonly used". Neither says "open". A format can be commonly used and still depend on one vendor's program. Publisher's files are a case in point: Microsoft's advice is to convert them, and it says third-party converters vary in quality. Nothing in the articles quoted here requires a desktop program to keep opening old files.

What do these stories have in common?

The central theme of all 3 stories is this: can you access and use your own data without relying on any external parties?

With Publisher, you rely on the program that opens the .pub file. With Mechanical Turk, you rely on the service from Amazon. With the Data Act, the intention is clearly to avoid having to rely on third parties, but it's unclear to me how effective it'll be in the long run.

What is left for you to do?

I don't know a single person who likes to do more work than they have to. Yet, this is exactly what Microsoft and Amazon are forcing by shutting off their software and services.

That's why it's always advantageous to have your data stored locally in an open format. Once it's open and in your hands, there's nothing left to do. There's no panic because your vendor gave you 5 weeks' notice. And there's no lock-out if you don't make it in time.

I hope that the news about Publisher and Mechanical Turk didn't take you by surprise. For those of you affected, here's what you can do:

In March I wrote that real ownership means being able to use your data whenever you want, with or without us. That is why BackupAssist Classic, our backup software for on-premises Windows servers and PCs, writes drive images as VHDX, file archives as ZIP64 and SQL backups as native SQL backups. BackupAssist 365, our Microsoft 365 backup, stores your Microsoft 365 files as ordinary files on your own storage.

The test from my March post on replacing Backup Exec still holds: if you stopped paying for the software tomorrow, could you still get your files back using standard Windows tools?

This week, search your servers and OneDrive for .pub files. Then pick the file type your business could least do without, and try to open one in something other than the program that made it. Which file type did you pick, and did it open?