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Businesses need to consider the risks involved with cloud providers turning hostile against them (especially Google). Case and point: poster has no recourse, ha

Businesses need to consider the risks involved with cloud providers turning hostile against them (especially Google). Case and point: poster has no recourse, had reason to trust Google's availability in hosting their docs, and got caught doing something unknown by an over-zealous, unregulated implementation of AI. Had the poster not had the knowledge or skill to recover the document it would probably be lost entirely.

Animats 4y ago
This is the sort of event that needs to be publicized within the accounting community. Storing business data in Google may not meet the legal requirements for keeping business records.
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  It may be moot but I would argue that you should never store important data on another company's servers without some guarantee of service and contract of data ownership. If the business was not profitable enough to afford Excel, OpenOffice is an almost Excel feature parity FOSS alternative. Had that file been stored on a cloud drive and regularly backed up to local or alternative 3rd party backup solutions, this issue not only wouldn't have happened but it also would not have been able to happen. Hindsight is 20/20. though. Don't store important documents on a cloud server that you have no backend access to without having a contract in place regarding the responsibilities of maintaining your data.
  - RealStickman_ 4y ago
    Please don't use OpenOffice, use LibreOffice instead. OO hasn't had a release in years and all the actual development happens in LO.
    - BizarroLand 4y ago
      Fair enough. LibreOffice is a better office suite, also. I just have a difficult time keeping them separate in my mind when I'm not actively looking at them.
- NoPicklez 4y ago
  Billion dollar companies (including accounting firms) use Google Workspace as their primary service for emails & document storage across all sorts of classifications (with limits). It is your responsibility as a business to understand what your legal, statutory and regulatory requirements are and then put those requirements into your service agreement or contract. Or ensure those requirements are configured as part of the deployment of the service.
  - midislack 4y ago
    Billion dollar businesses violate the law regularly. Flagrantly.
    - NoPicklez 4y ago
      Despite being a brandish comment, that's what contractual agreements are for to allow businesses to seek litigation in the event the agreement is broken. Either way, it's not Google's responsibility to know what your requirements are. They can assume and develop features that support particular regulatory requirements. But it is the responsibility of the organisation doing business with Google to stipulate their requirements.
ohashi 4y ago
I'm glad I thought about the cached trick on phone sheets. But loses all underlying formulas because I got a PDF (which may be out of date), but at least it's better than nothing.

Animats 4y ago

This is the sort of event that needs to be publicized within the accounting community. Storing business data in Google may not meet the legal requirements for keeping business records.

BizarroLand 4y ago
It may be moot but I would argue that you should never store important data on another company's servers without some guarantee of service and contract of data ownership. If the business was not profitable enough to afford Excel, OpenOffice is an almost Excel feature parity FOSS alternative. Had that file been stored on a cloud drive and regularly backed up to local or alternative 3rd party backup solutions, this issue not only wouldn't have happened but it also would not have been able to happen. Hindsight is 20/20. though. Don't store important documents on a cloud server that you have no backend access to without having a contract in place regarding the responsibilities of maintaining your data.
- RealStickman_ 4y ago
  Please don't use OpenOffice, use LibreOffice instead. OO hasn't had a release in years and all the actual development happens in LO.
  - BizarroLand 4y ago
    Fair enough. LibreOffice is a better office suite, also. I just have a difficult time keeping them separate in my mind when I'm not actively looking at them.
NoPicklez 4y ago
Billion dollar companies (including accounting firms) use Google Workspace as their primary service for emails & document storage across all sorts of classifications (with limits). It is your responsibility as a business to understand what your legal, statutory and regulatory requirements are and then put those requirements into your service agreement or contract. Or ensure those requirements are configured as part of the deployment of the service.
- midislack 4y ago
  Billion dollar businesses violate the law regularly. Flagrantly.
  - NoPicklez 4y ago
    Despite being a brandish comment, that's what contractual agreements are for to allow businesses to seek litigation in the event the agreement is broken. Either way, it's not Google's responsibility to know what your requirements are. They can assume and develop features that support particular regulatory requirements. But it is the responsibility of the organisation doing business with Google to stipulate their requirements.

ohashi 4y ago

I'm glad I thought about the cached trick on phone sheets. But loses all underlying formulas because I got a PDF (which may be out of date), but at least it's better than nothing.