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To play devil's advocate - you willingly gave it to them, with almost zero contractual expectations. In a technical sense it is their stuff, and they have graci

To play devil's advocate - you willingly gave it to them, with almost zero contractual expectations. In a technical sense it is their stuff, and they have graciously implemented a feature allowing you to retrieve a copy of it. I definitely agree that it's the "right" thing to do, but this kind of comment speaks of entitlement and lack of personal responsibility. They're offering a service, they don't have any inherent obligation, and you can choose not to use it.

fragsworth 13y ago
Absolutely not. The implicit agreement is that they provide a service to hold, manage, and use your stuff, and you give up a certain amount of privacy by allowing them to see it - and they get to advertise at you while you use the service, and maybe make money in other ways off your information. So in other words, it really is your stuff. Imagine if they locked your accounts from you out of malice - it's legal gray area, since I don't believe there have been any court cases, but I'm pretty sure the result would be obvious. You would easily be able to sue them to get back your access to it.
- resu_nimda 13y ago
  Why would you have the expectation of an implicit agreement? There is no implicit agreement, that's an unfounded assumption by the user. I imagine they could completely shut down all unpaid gmail access at any moment with no legal implications (though I haven't read the fine print, and in that extreme case the courts would probably step in just to keep the country running smoothly). What precedent is there to support your hypothetical lawsuit? I kind of disagree, they would just get a lot of negative PR.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    If Google simply shut down Gmail, their stockholders would pretty much fire the entire leadership of the company. It would be professional suicide to approve something like that.
    - tonfa 13y ago
      I wonder if Page, Brin and Schmidt (the majority stockholders) would fire Larry, Sergei and Eric.
      - sjwright 13y ago
        I see what you did there.
      - rhizome 13y ago
        There would certainly be a change of leadership due to the change in the business that shutting down gmail would cause. The PR hit would be huge, and I'd WAG that majority rule would not be enough to keep them in place.
    - sologrrl 13y ago
      The founder's shares count 10 times the voting cloud of the normal shareholders resulting in around 66% majority for them. http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/technology/google-earnings/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/technology/google-earnings/
- bad_user 13y ago
  Implementing exporting features takes time and money. If such things would come for free, then they would have an obligation. Yes, it's your stuff and I don't agree with the parent. But you're not necessarily entitled to features for an easy export of that stuff. That's the kind of agreement that has to be explicit in order for you to feel entitled. Anyway, if you want fair treatment and to feel like a customer and not a product, you should pay for using it. I'm on Google Apps, I have my own domain and email address, I can always move, I don't get adds, I can use the Exchange protocol, I have more options for importing/exporting and the email support has been very responsive for me. From what I hear Office 365 is a solid option lately and there's also FastMail.fm and others. And btw, allowing them to advertise in your Inbox does not make you the customer, you're just a user of free stuff. And free stuff is great, but not when you depend on it (unless it's open-source :))
rhizome 13y ago
A person who lived by this "technical" principle would likely find that their friends no longer wanted to loan them anything. After all, there is no "inherent obligation" for you to return anything, right?
- MBlume 13y ago
  What? Yes, there is, that's what "loan" means.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    It's only because data does not have legal status as property. It doesn't keep people from feeling a similar degree of ownership over the data they store with Google et al, though, and I think it points to a democratic desire for these data-retrieval acts and implementations to be more than goodwill. The third-party doctrine is only a convention, after all.
justincormack 13y ago
I am paying them for this so I expect more.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  You can expect what they've laid out in the contract you agreed to.
donniezazen 13y ago
I have ambivalent feelings too but more in a gracious sense. I have long hold the philosophy that data should be treated as a consumer's personal property. Companies have reasonable rights to refuse to serve but they shouldn't be given authority to confiscate consumer's personal property and close their accounts unless warranted by the law of the land.

fragsworth 13y ago

Absolutely not. The implicit agreement is that they provide a service to hold, manage, and use your stuff, and you give up a certain amount of privacy by allowing them to see it - and they get to advertise at you while you use the service, and maybe make money in other ways off your information. So in other words, it really is your stuff. Imagine if they locked your accounts from you out of malice - it's legal gray area, since I don't believe there have been any court cases, but I'm pretty sure the result would be obvious. You would easily be able to sue them to get back your access to it.

resu_nimda 13y ago
Why would you have the expectation of an implicit agreement? There is no implicit agreement, that's an unfounded assumption by the user. I imagine they could completely shut down all unpaid gmail access at any moment with no legal implications (though I haven't read the fine print, and in that extreme case the courts would probably step in just to keep the country running smoothly). What precedent is there to support your hypothetical lawsuit? I kind of disagree, they would just get a lot of negative PR.
- rhizome 13y ago
  If Google simply shut down Gmail, their stockholders would pretty much fire the entire leadership of the company. It would be professional suicide to approve something like that.
  - tonfa 13y ago
    I wonder if Page, Brin and Schmidt (the majority stockholders) would fire Larry, Sergei and Eric.
    - sjwright 13y ago
      I see what you did there.
    - rhizome 13y ago
      There would certainly be a change of leadership due to the change in the business that shutting down gmail would cause. The PR hit would be huge, and I'd WAG that majority rule would not be enough to keep them in place.
  - sologrrl 13y ago
    The founder's shares count 10 times the voting cloud of the normal shareholders resulting in around 66% majority for them. http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/technology/google-earnings/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/technology/google-earnings/
bad_user 13y ago
Implementing exporting features takes time and money. If such things would come for free, then they would have an obligation. Yes, it's your stuff and I don't agree with the parent. But you're not necessarily entitled to features for an easy export of that stuff. That's the kind of agreement that has to be explicit in order for you to feel entitled. Anyway, if you want fair treatment and to feel like a customer and not a product, you should pay for using it. I'm on Google Apps, I have my own domain and email address, I can always move, I don't get adds, I can use the Exchange protocol, I have more options for importing/exporting and the email support has been very responsive for me. From what I hear Office 365 is a solid option lately and there's also FastMail.fm and others. And btw, allowing them to advertise in your Inbox does not make you the customer, you're just a user of free stuff. And free stuff is great, but not when you depend on it (unless it's open-source :))

rhizome 13y ago

A person who lived by this "technical" principle would likely find that their friends no longer wanted to loan them anything. After all, there is no "inherent obligation" for you to return anything, right?

MBlume 13y ago
What? Yes, there is, that's what "loan" means.
- rhizome 13y ago
  It's only because data does not have legal status as property. It doesn't keep people from feeling a similar degree of ownership over the data they store with Google et al, though, and I think it points to a democratic desire for these data-retrieval acts and implementations to be more than goodwill. The third-party doctrine is only a convention, after all.

justincormack 13y ago

I am paying them for this so I expect more.

JohnTHaller 13y ago
You can expect what they've laid out in the contract you agreed to.

donniezazen 13y ago

I have ambivalent feelings too but more in a gracious sense. I have long hold the philosophy that data should be treated as a consumer's personal property. Companies have reasonable rights to refuse to serve but they shouldn't be given authority to confiscate consumer's personal property and close their accounts unless warranted by the law of the land.