News - Thousands of Gmail accounts wiped

[HEXUS]

Google working on getting them back!

Read more.

[borandi]

The Daily Mail reported

Hardly a reputable news outlet.

[spoon_]

Go Google!

[AlexKitch]

It's really worrying that companies like Google are trying to sell cloud computing as the future of the internet, and suggest that we needn't be storing data locally any more - yet these kind of cock-ups are still happening on regular intervals.

[AGTDenton]

Exactly the reason why I will not rely on the cloud. Its clear from this that cloud based services from companies of any size should not be 100% relied upon to keep your data safe, secure or backed up. Small companies adopting the cloud should really think of the risk factors!

Gmail should implement a function to backup everything to a PC/Phone etc...

[Guy]

Gmail should implement a function to backup everything to a PC/Phone etc...

Whats stopping you use Outlook or an equivilent?

[danroyle]

Whats stopping you use Outlook or an equivilent?

good question.

I use outlook any emails i want kept i keep and the same with my contacts too.

Anyone that is naive enough to kepp all there data in one place deserves to lose it. I did it once and got attacked by a rather nasty virus (thanks to my young brother who was looking at some "movies" while we slept and had disabled my av and firewalls for some reason)

I lost about 200 pictures of my son all taken betweeon 0 and 3 months my wife was devastated these days i have a sentry safe hard drive and important stuff is also backed up on two Memory sticks just in case the pc back up drive and one memory stick all die at the same time.

[AGTDenton]

Whats stopping you use Outlook or an equivilent?

Good point for those not dedicated to Google world, could you imagine a googlite installing another Email app????
Thankfully I dont use Gmail or cloud based emails for anything of any value so I dont need a backup. If I start using Andriod properly then I will use the Exchange sync.

[Spud1]

This kind of thing will happen more and more with the pseduo free services like GMail - there is no SLA,no guarantee of anything..so you are stuck with this when it happens.

It's different in a commercial environment, you will have an SLA that guarantees multiple redundancies + backups etc, but here it's all down to you.

Using Outlook is a great way - just download all your email every week or so and you are safe

[scaryjim]

Anyone that is naive enough to keep all there data in one place deserves to lose it.

A firm believer in the concept of cloud computing, it never occurred to me that my Gmail account could one day disappear.

I'm with dan on this one. Anyone who thinks that committing their email account to an unaccountable third party guarantees them perpetual security of data is beyond naive. To say that it "never occurred" goes beyond naivety - they didn't even think about the security of their data in the first place

Unfortunately, it's an all-too-common mindset nowadays...

[TheAnimus]

I for one take umbirdge at the umbra collapse

[crossy]

This kind of thing will happen more and more with the pseduo free services like GMail - there is no SLA,no guarantee of anything..so you are stuck with this when it happens. It's different in a commercial environment, you will have an SLA that guarantees multiple redundancies + backups etc, but here it's all down to you.

Excellent point - clearly made.
Personally I've got Google and Hotmail accounts, but they're only there to provide another level of spam filtering. All the useful stuff that goes to those accounts gets moved to my main mail account - which I pay for, and therefore has SLA's etc. And because this service is IMAP-based, that mail gets sync'd to all the machines I access it from - automatically (which doesn't take long in Thunderbird, no Outlook for me because I've got two Linux boxes).

Seriously, there's so many relatively inexpensive email hosting services out there (Rackspace, Fasthosts, Cobweb, etc) that it should be relatively easy and cheap to get a proper service. However, I was just checking the T&C's for 1&1 and saw
"The Company disclaims all liabilities in connection with the following :

• loss of material uploaded
• incompatibility of the site with any of the Customer's equipment, software or telecommunications links
• technical problems including errors or interruptions of the site
• unsuitability, unreliability or inaccuracy of the site.
• damage, loss or corruption of the Customer’s data in any way including but not limited to unavailability following the termination or suspension of the Customer’s account."

which is a great "you-can't-blame-us-for-anything" coverall!
When I was looking for mail provision I actually discovered that it was cheaper to just get a full hosting package and then don't bother using the webspace. Again, taking the example of 1&1, they do a Linux hosting package with 2GB mail and 1,500 mail addresses for £4.99 - which surely is a price worth paying for (relative?) peace of mind (they claim high reliability and daily backups).

Using Outlook is a great way - just download all your email every week or so and you are safe

That's assuming that Outlook doesn't have a hissy fit and knacker it's databases and hence lose your data, (yes, I've had this problem in the past).

[Infinite]

GMail does have an offline mode that downloads all your email, contacts and calenders locally to your computer.

People can't really bitch about a free service.

[AGTDenton]

GMail does have an offline mode that downloads all your email, contacts and calenders locally to your computer.

Nice spotting!
Worth noting for anyone else:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/a...n&answer=97535

[aidanjt]

What concerns me is not that this happened, it's that people didn't even consider that it could happen. Seriously?