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I don't know if this has gone to court yet - but I'd assume that if Dropbox does a thing to delete a bunch of data that causes you a great loss of value when yo

by munk-a 5y ago

I don't know if this has gone to court yet - but I'd assume that if Dropbox does a thing to delete a bunch of data that causes you a great loss of value when you're paying them specifically to store a bunch of data - then there would be enough of an implied contract in place that you could extract a bunch of pain from them regardless of what their TOS tries to say. The law is complicated and the details are extremely important - but intent is a pretty big factor. Also - I'd strongly advise someone who is deciding between buying an external hard drive or using a third party for backup to use the third party. There are definitely risks that remain, but their SLA is likely going to end up being a lot stronger than your hard drive's reliability.

cma 5y ago
Then people irresponsibly storing single copies of critical data on Dropbox raise the cost for more responsible users, because upon loss Dropbox has to pay out the high value of the loss to the irresponsible user, but pay next to nothing to the reponsible users, who already have multiple backups or store less critical data. It should at least be a tiered offering with different liability caps.
rgbrenner 5y ago
That has gone to court. They're using the same limitation of liability (including data loss), as-is clause, and waiver of warranties found in every software license. It's entirely enforceable. Read the TOS. You're not getting anything from them if they delete your data.
romwell 5y ago
I am very sorry to break it to you, but there is no Santa, and you'll be SOL if Dropbox's SLA hits a SNAFU. Also, from another comment in this thread: >I've "lost" (had to restore from personal backup drives) data from Dropbox due to an error made by their support staff during a mass rollback, which was itself needed due to the Dropbox client interpreting a drive disconnection as a mass file deletion.
3np 5y ago
> I'd strongly advise someone who is deciding between buying an external hard drive or using a third party for backup to use the third party One does not safely rely on one third party for backups. You should do both the local drive and the remote, not one or the other.

by munk-a 5y ago

cma 5y ago

Then people irresponsibly storing single copies of critical data on Dropbox raise the cost for more responsible users, because upon loss Dropbox has to pay out the high value of the loss to the irresponsible user, but pay next to nothing to the reponsible users, who already have multiple backups or store less critical data. It should at least be a tiered offering with different liability caps.

rgbrenner 5y ago

That has gone to court. They're using the same limitation of liability (including data loss), as-is clause, and waiver of warranties found in every software license. It's entirely enforceable. Read the TOS. You're not getting anything from them if they delete your data.

romwell 5y ago

I am very sorry to break it to you, but there is no Santa, and you'll be SOL if Dropbox's SLA hits a SNAFU. Also, from another comment in this thread: >I've "lost" (had to restore from personal backup drives) data from Dropbox due to an error made by their support staff during a mass rollback, which was itself needed due to the Dropbox client interpreting a drive disconnection as a mass file deletion.

3np 5y ago

> I'd strongly advise someone who is deciding between buying an external hard drive or using a third party for backup to use the third party One does not safely rely on one third party for backups. You should do both the local drive and the remote, not one or the other.