So much for that idea

[mdlbear]

From this post by tagryn, a cautionary tale of the of relying on third-parties to store your important files and email: When Google Owns You.

One of my coworkers had an equally bad experience with Netscape Calendar: one day it was just gone. Not only had they cancelled the service, but they'd deleted all the user data. They had been careful not to tell their customers of this plan, because they "didn't want anyone to complain."

I'd been contemplating switching some of my domains over to Google for email -- Dreamhost makes it easy to set that up. Maybe not.

Yeah, almost all of my websites are third-party-hosted now. But the hosts are nothing but a mirror for the various internal working directories. And they're going to stay that way. If I can figure out how to do that with some Google's services, I may consider using a few of them.

Comments

[kyrielle]

I use google for some email. Non-critical stuff (mailing lists, for example) I let clutter up in there - if it vanishes, small loss. Other stuff (like LJ comments, and emails sent directly to me) route forward to my personal email - and Google has a copy. It's duplication, but it makes it easy to access anywhere. My friends still have my direct personal email, but at least I don't have to check gmail obsessively to see if I got an email from an LJ acquaintance using the address - but I do have a web-based cache of LJ and mailing list stuff.

I think that's the most I'd trust them with, honestly.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I've been saying this for years. While I think it's a good idea to have one's email on a server with a real-SLA-backed network link and backup power and such, having it be a small shop that you can trust (or if you have the bucks and the facilities, in your own data closet) is a goodness. Barring that, your own server in somebody's big data center works... but still. Owning the server one's critical data is on == very important.

(You read Little Brother yet?)

[mdlbear]

Have not read Little Brother; haven't even heard of it. Is book?

Colo's have their own problems; I'd still want my critical data backed up multiple places, including my bedroom.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

It's a book (http://craphound.com/littlebrother/). Somebody blows up the Bay Bridge, and our hero is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and tries to defend his rights against lawless Homeland Security types. It's basically a primer for 21st century pro-first-and-fourth-amendment tactics in the face of an authoritarian state, with what so far is a good story wrapped around it. Doctorow said this was one of those catharsis things; it came pouring out so fast it hurt. (You and I would both know something about that, I think.) Required reading for any freedom-loving geek.

*nods* redundancy is a good thing. Copies you can pick up and walk off with, better. (Heck, if it's less than 8gb, you can stuff it in a pocket these days. Terabyte if it's a cargo pocket. :)

[ravan.livejournal.com]

Redundancy and dispersal of data is good. Earthquakes, vendor perfidy, and hardware failures are all equivalent risks in my book.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Government perfidy is... perhaps more so. More insidious, that's for sure.