What is Digg?177 Comments
- Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42Somebody call the WaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAaaaambulance.
If it's important to you ... have a backup, and don't rely on Beta software to be robust.
Yes, yes ... I know Google is notorious for the "Beta Forever" ... however they've got a reason for that. They test the sh!t out of things before they'll pull the Beta tag. Obviously, they don't thing Gmail is ready to have the Beta tag pulled yet.
I am also well aware that many of you think that because Google has opened gmail to such a wide userbase, that they have a responsibility to have a higher level of fault tolerance ... I think you're wrong. Part of Google's Beta testing requires a large userbase for stress testing ...
Read Gmail's Terms of Service for Gmail ... they very clearly discuss the potential for data loss, and if you read that ... you might realize you need to have a redundant backup! - szelij, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22Yes he does deserver a better response but this post is misleading. That's a polite way to say ' WE DONT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. ITS NOT OUR FAULT'. Seems like they looked into it and don't know what caused it. What more can you want? Magically fabricate a fault?
And don't know if they can restore the account...perhaps it's been overwritten already and/or lost somewhere in Google's server cluster. - silent1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Okay, for one thing it's free. Free, people. Don't expect stellar (or even *any*) support if it's a free service. What do you expect, data recovery services (averaging 10,000 dollars to recover "lost" data)?
Second, to the guy saying, "Umm, it is not free. It is ad supported. There is a difference. Just because this guy doesn't pay $$, doesn't mean its free." ... What the hell? To that guy it's FREE. Period. My head is about to explode trying to wrap my mind around your logic.
Finally, I have a gmail account. I use it for mailing list subscriptions because I want it to be easily disposable and anonymous. The POP3 interface seems to choke on me sometimes. Is it annoying? Yes. Do I get angry at Google? Not really ... because IT'S FREE BECAUSE I DIDN'T PAY FOR IT. - techie4life, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Maybe google is saying that "WE GET FALSE EMAILS ATTEPMTING TO GET CONTROL OF EMAIL ALL THE TIME. UNLESS U CAN PROVE THAT THIS ACCOUNT WAS YOURS OUT HANDS ARE TIED"
- bnoble, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Given the lack of evidence (screenshots, bounced email, etc.), I'm starting to think this Bob dude is full of *****.
- vdxc, on 09/29/2008, -3/+10so let me get this straight, you expect one of the biggest web companies to hire thousands of staff to investigate every issue and send complex and detailed emails?
Google may be loaded but no company can afford to waste millions of hours of time and money every year investigating issues fully on a beta service. - bluehouse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I can't really feel too bad for someone who keeps important/mission critical emails in a free email service. You should have known better. Remember.. you get what you pay for!
- ThePerchik, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Its Beta but the google system on the backend is not. Google uses GFS(Google File System) to store data. The data is replicated over 3 servers and in the case the one goes down it is immediately duplicated onto a replacement from a functioning one. I am taking this with a grain of salt. Bugs and wierd things happen but there is always that computer user or neighbor that says he didnt touch nothing and his computer blew up.
Here is the link to a paper of GFS http://ebbets.poly.edu/wein/cs623/gfs.pdf - MrDevious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"We have investigated this issue, but because the results were inconclusive, we're not able to provide further assistance.
Gmail takes the privacy and security of our users very seriously. For this reason, we can't reveal any further information about this account."
I can completely understand Gmails response, how can they know for sure he isn't just someone trying to get access to another persons email address. It's not like any of the info you have to give Gmail can identify you. So for all they know he could have just got the password to someones old account and now wants to check that account out. - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Google refuses to assist guy who lost his Gmail account"
His account wasn't "lost", it was actually deleted, and his blog post tells this.
Now that raises some suspicions over what he actually used his account for.
Considering this hasn't happened to *anyone* else I've heard of as well. - Prod_Deity, on 10/12/2007, -17/+23First off, it's a beta service. ***** happens.
Also, it's a free service. If he was paying for it, then I could understand the uproar. - socket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6When you sign up for ANY web based email account you do so at your own risk. Google has no way to know if anyone who makes a query about ANY account is the true owner. This is because no REAL tangible or verifiable information is required to open a Gmail account.
So do yourself a favor and don't get pissed when they can't give you any information about the account. This should also make you feel a little better about privacy... if it was that easy to get information about a Gmail account people would be crying about how slack Google is about privacy.
If you need something 100% reliable then don't look to a FREE service. - LoungeActx, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11I agree...to use a free web based service full time for important emails is a pretty crappy way to go. Spend a few dollars, or use the POP email address that your ISP gives you, or since you have a website, create a POP email address so that you constantly have a copy of it. If I'm not mistaking Google lets you hook up your email with (Mail.app, Outlook, etc) so you can use it as a POP, or IMAP account.
So to complain that you lost everything and Google isn't helping you is kinda without merit. Yes, it is crappy that you lost all your stuff. But take some personal responsibility for your decision to strictly use their web based beta product in the first place. - xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6yea, like i said it before, he probably had some illegal ***** in his account and broke the TOS.
- Wyrm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Funny thing is that first guy claims
"I have over 300mb of CRUCIAL data in my email, none of which I have backups for."
and then
"Neither do I use my GMail account for anything other than the reading and writing for regular email. Not even for the storage of personal files."
I wonder which it is. Guy must be one hell of a writer to have 300mb mails there and no stored personal files... - transpot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6To those who say "It's beta. You get what you pay for". What would you do if you were in his shoes? Could you still say "Ah, My account is gone. It's fine cuz still in beta :)" I don't think so.
- webdevil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6How do we even know that he's telling the truth? What if he's just making this whole thing up cause he's pro Microsoft and Anti-google. Anyone can write up a canned responce that you'd get from a company and post it on a blog to be fact. I just don't buy it. What makes his account so special? Why didn't anyone else lose an account? And if he did lose it then why wouldn't Google have a backup to restore from?
- TKDWILSON, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You mean with a name like antigoogle you had a Gmail account? I call BS here.
Eric Wilson - webdevil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It takes longer then a year for a system that supports millions of users to get all the growing pains worked out of it. Remember it wasn't that long ago that they implemented anti-virus.
Also if we used that kind of think then I shouldn't be receiving Microsoft Updates anymore cause Microsoft has had plenty of time to work out all of their issues. Right? - jaggyg, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10i feel bad for that dude. i hope this continues getting attention and google is forced to at least give the guy a decent response. how hard is it to restore the damn account anyway?
- gookie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Unprofessional. Even if you are offering a BETA service, you should show more decorum especially when you are a company like GOOGLE.
- 1raZer1, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13I expect his pass got hacked and account deleted. Not google's fault
- dpittman42, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I had a problem with my gmail login a while ago and they were very helpful. I take this guys story with a box of salt...
- cclenny, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I can't believe how most people are so "understanding" of Google.
Oh it's Beta software or oh it's free so don't blame Google. I can't believe how one-sided and bias these postings are.
What if this was Microsoft instead of Google? - mxpxpx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4the sad thing is, 90% of people wont feel the need to back stuff up, until they personaly have lost something
- digitalsin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Man I can't believe the amount of google fanboys on here.
Google encourages you to store as much stuff in your gmail account as you want. Yes, it's in beta, but guess what? BETA MEANS YOU CHECK INTO BUGS AND GIVE THE USER FEEDBACK. Being in beta does not exempt the gmail support team from assisting in tracking down bugs, and certainly does not excempt them from being a little more courteous to the users. It's quite the contrary.
So some people think he's a putz for not backing up his e-mail. Give me a break people. The POINT of having a web based, offsite repository of your email, the POINT of having someone ELSE host your e-mail and data, is because they are responsible for providing the service of NOT LOSING your stuff.
Digg really needs to be renamed to "google-fanboy-hangout.com" - digitalsin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5 Exactly my point. The fanboys are so ready to forgive anything google does. Everyone is preaching about backups. I would just about guarantee that 85% of the people preaching backups haven't taken a backup before this story posted in the last 6 months.
- antigoogle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4POOR SERVICE WITH $120B market cap
This is unacceptable
Yahoo!Mail is way much better! and stable!
Anyway.... Let them play with their toys in GooglePlex! - nigeltufnel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Call me a skeptic, but I think there might be more to the story than what "Bob" is willing to say now that he's getting all this attention.
- volcompimp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No Digg... Letter based on one person's experience emailing Google from an outside account. Google would have no business giving away information about an account, that's how social engineering gets people in trouble.
- Billistic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4In the end they are offering the service, if they can't handle the responsibilty of running a service then they shouldn't run it.
- EricG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3My experience with the google mail team has been good, the few issues I emailed them about they have fixed within a couple days.. so I have nothing but good things to say about them.. no complaints here.
- maczealot, on 10/12/2007, -19/+22I look at this guy the same way I look at a user who doesn't backup his data. Someone who had to learn the hard way. Despite Gmail _allowing_ large storage capacity it does NOT mean you should use it for your "primary" email account.
In FACT you should only use an email account as "primary" if you OWN the domain imho. Minimum you should only use a domain that you don't own and a server you don't control if you are PAYING someone to do so and there are TOS that guarantee your data is yours. Otherwise you may very well find yourself in this guys situation.
Gmail is STILL Beta, just because it is slick does not mean it is trustigious. This guy is like someone on the old MUDs crying because the owner arbitrarily deleted their account. Boo hoo. - digitalsin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Here's an extrapolation of upcoming google stories on digg and expected google Fan Boy responses
1. Google deleted all my email AND my account. FB Response: Shoulda' backed it up
2. Google Desktop Search deleted all the files on my computer. FB Response: Everyone knows its just pretty to look at the search box, you don't actually USE IT idiot. Consider yourself lucky the google software is touching your computer!
3. Google deleted my computer from existence. FB Response: You shouldn't have used a computer to begin with
4. Google came over and raped me. FB Response: I wish I could have been you at that moment.
It's so pathetic. - Dorkbot101, 9 hr 1 min ago, -1/+4"How long has GMail been in beta? This isn't an excuse for a beta running this long. If the service just started, sure, but when it's this deep in the 'beta', then things like this shouldn't be happening. "
beta is beta is beta. to ensure a final stable release, beta's should last as long as it takes!
just one more step, man. - Corgana, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7it's a BETA service. It's not supposed to be 100% trusted... yet.
that having been said- googe's response is suprising for a company of their caliber. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3At least google responded to him.
For years I was with Lycos who fed me at least 400GB of ads by now, and I have yet to receive one reply to any of my questions, including the ones about paying them for an upgrade.... - gluon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I am glad to see that digg.com is not the lynch-mob that it was in danger of becoming. In large part, I think it has to do with the awesome new commenting system. Sometimes, someone will post a rant and it is a legitimate rant, and digg.com will go on the offense. Personally, i'm not a fan of vigilante justice but at the very least, at least it was a legitimate problem. I have to agree with others that it smells like his account was hijacked or he forgot his own security question, but I have little sympathy for those who complain about losing data without any backups. I'm glad to see there is no retaliatory action and we recognize that, at least to some extent, the blame is not all on google.
- phpirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't really care. My alternative is hotmail, which is made by a company whos bugs and problems I face everyday. Thanks, I'll keep my 2.5+ gigs of space, and my service with that software is so far been flawless.
All we have here is the claim of one blogger that his account got deleted. I have no idea if this is true, but it sounds more like he deleted his own account. I doubt that google picked him out of the millions of users to delete his account. He did something to screw it up and he doesn't want to admit it, he just wants them to recover his account so hes whining about it. - tavisjohn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"not free; what about ads!"
Boradcast TV is "Free" with commertials. There is not guarantee that you will be able to recieve their broascasts or quality of service. Of you were to call one of your local TV stations and complain that you could not recieve their broadcast, they would basically respond in the same way.
Now if you pay for Satalight or Cable TV then you are not only paying for more channels, you are also paying for a guaranteed quality of their service!
I do not remember anywhere in the Terms of Service for GMail that they guarantee your data or e-mail messages at all!
Again like I said in the other posting of this, he did not back up his important data, therefore he deserves his fate! GMail is SOO EASY to backup as well!!! All you need is a news reader (ThunderBird is FREE and available for Win, Linux, AND MAC!). Setup your Pop3 and SMTP settings on it and POOF instant backup!
Also CD & DVD burners are SOO inexpensive now that you can then take that e-mail and burn it onto a DVD! A DVD will hold 4.5 gig of data (If you go Dual Layer you can get 8.5 gig of data). That is almost 2x(4x for DL disks) the space that is given to you by GMail! If your data is not worth under $200.00 for the hardware to backup and as MUTCH as $0.75 a disk per backup, then it is not worh Google's time and effert!
With all the ways to archive your data now, and how affordable it is, there really is NO REASON for you to loose your data! You can also get a USB Hard Drive that you can store a copy of your data to. Then place it in a safe place incase something happens! If you need your data on hand, then get a USB GlashDrive!
The only reason to loose data now a days is from LAZYNESS! If you are TOO LAZY to backup your data, then you deserve to loose it when something goes wrong!
--- --- --- ---
I find it interesting that peope will take the time to figure out how to "Backup" their DVD's, Music CD's, PSX, PS2, GameCube games but they can not backup their important data. They are BEGGED reality to give them the boot in the bum! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I feel bad for him, but he could have lessened the blow by making a backup of stuff he had to keep.
I would never completely trust someone else to retain my crucial data. Especially if it was a free a email account that was still in beta and the company explicitly disclaims all liability for data loss. - NineTailedFox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, I've had some problems with Mozilla apps in the past, but nothing that forums full of volunteers haven't been able to help me sort out. Perhaps that was because I asked for help, instead of complaining to them?. I've certainly gained far more from using them than the nothing I've contributed (the latter being a situation I should set right).
I'd be impressed if Thunderbird deleted any of the other copies of my emails, by the way. - RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Yes. So instead of hitting "DIGG" you have several options:
"This is lame:" - the story wasn't interesting to begin with
"Duplicate story" - it's the same story (with a VERY minor update) as the last crappy one
"Old news" - yep, people lose data. This isn't new.
"Inaccurate" - The description says "disappointing..." how is this "disappointing"? Was google supposed to give him a pony with a flash drive under the saddle that had all of his email?
"Bad Link" - links to a blog/messageboard
"Spam" - it was submitted soley to try to advance the personal interests of this email putz.
Take your pick... it's rare you see an article on the front page fall under SO MANY wonderful categories. If you've never used the report feature, now is your chance to try it out :) - racerxyz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2All my notepad.yahoo.com notes got whacked back a couple years ago, and I could not get Yahoo to respond to any emails for help. Try finding a phone number? I calld corp office, and they only referred me to online help. At least Google lets you POP your mail to archive it offline.
- mynickel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5How to backup your Gmail account so you can avoid this kind of thing (in the very rare event it could happen):
http://www.digg.com/technology/How_to_backup_your_Gmail - apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Yea... its free. If I didn't pay for it... its free.
- gookie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Umm. 2.5 gigs you said? What for? When they delete your emails anyways.....
*sigh* - brianticap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I know it's BETA and I know it's free, but what if that happened to you? It can be fixed - his data did not just disappear. Some better investigation by Google would solve this terrible problem -but Google will not because...? Maybe if he were someone IMPORTANT with a bigger voice, then Google will pay attention. I think we should give him that voice.
- feshmania, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I love the people on that forum pushing to make Google the bad guy. It seems to me that people are bored with calling Microsoft the big, bad wolf, so they need a new villian. It's awful that just because they're successful, Google keeps getting attacked.
- gookie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What I learn from this.
DONT USE GOOGLE SERIOUSLY.
USE IT ONLY FOR TESTING...BECOZ...IT'S....SURPRISE.......BETA!!!
Is that the point fanboys are trying to defend google with? Well then, you've all made your point. We wont take gmail for serious emailing anymore. -
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