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This reminds me how once, around 2005, Microsoft deleted all my email and the address book in hotmail account after 30 days of inactivity. I'm not touching anyt
by DenisM 15y ago
This reminds me how once, around 2005, Microsoft deleted all my email and the address book in hotmail account after 30 days of inactivity. I'm not touching anything that comes out of their MSN/live/whatever division with a ten foot pole, and I will never tire of telling this story. And Google's going in the same direction now.
The problem with these events is not that companies took actions to conserve their resources. They certainly do. The problem is that somewhere in those companies there are people that think "Oh, it's ok, I will nuke 5 years of this guy's data, and we don't really need to provide a way for him to export any of hist stuff. Who cares? I certainly don't. Bang-bang. Checked in! Time to go home.". A company that has this kind of employees can never be trusted.
Now that the trust is broken they would have to do something extraordinary to repair it. A compassionate tweet and restoration of one wrongfully disabled account is not going to cut it.
- grannyg00se 15y agoIs it reasonable to expect that any free service owes you much more than that? Google and Microsoft can blast away my entire 5+ year history of hotmail and gmail all they want. Anything really important is backed up on storage that I actually own. Maybe I'm more paranoid than most but here are a couple of internet rules that I keep in mind: 1. Any thing in "the cloud" is subject to evaporation. 2. Anything posted online is open and free information to the entire world. If it is clearly specified otherwise, you can try your luck but don't be surprised when your luck runs out.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- pitdesi 15y agoI find great fault with your calling these services "free." They are free to the user but we pay for them (and they make money) by us looking at targeted ads that they are serving us. The issue is that they hold far more command over us than other free services out there (like OTA TV, for example).
- libria 15y agoHe did mention he paid for additional storage, so he's a patron. Understandably, there are business expectations attached to that.
- DenisM 15y agoIt is reasonable to expect them not to be jerks. Google saved a penny in doing this, and they caused hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours of losses to the victim. It's "my penny is more important than your hundred dollars" mentality that's the problem. It's simple - don't be a jerk. If you want to terminate relationship with a user, let him leave and take his stuff him. Just because the two of you did not get along and you happen to have the power, does not mean you should inflict misery on the other guy.
- aristidb 15y agoPlus, the damage in loss of reputation is very real.