What is Digg?214 Comments
- yonbeastie, on 10/12/2007, -5/+64It seems to me that while accidents do happen (even with GMail), the risk of losing the data on your personal hard drive is far greater than GMail flubbing and losing data on theirs. Just a thought...
Important documents should have a hard copy!! ;) - CapitolK, on 10/12/2007, -3/+47You know, gmail has a great POP3 system that allows you to have a local email program download all your messages, without deleting them from the gmail web interface.
While more people should take advantage of that to protect their data, google really shouldn't be deleting gmail accounts for no reason... Definitely digg++. Hopefully it will help get google's attention, so that (if necessary) it can fix whatever caused this (and maybe make it less likely to happen to you!) - Dradis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+38"I have over 300mb of CRUCIAL data in my email, none of which I have backups for. "
His mistake wasn't using GMail as his primary email, his mistake was not having backups for his important data.
I think we all learn that lesson the hard way. - illynova, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32Something tells me this guy isn't telling the whole story....
- starsky51, on 10/12/2007, -8/+33I keep hearing this 'spat my coffee out' comment and i just can't believe it happens. these must be the same geeks that actually 'Roll On the Floor Laughing'.
- Foxman2000, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31"i wonder how we got by when it didnt exist."
Carrier Pigeon - noamsml, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29POP3 and IMAP
- galfridus73, on 10/12/2007, -8/+26You're right... the error message is consistent with an account that was deleted by the user or someone posing as the user.
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -9/+27gmail just happens to be the only usable online email service on the internet. sometimes i wonder how we got by when it didnt exist.
- CovardeAnonimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15configure your gmail account to use POP3 _and_ keep a copy at their servers. set up mozilla suite or thunderbird according to the instructions on gmail's help and download a copy to your computer.
you'll still be able to access your mail from anywhere with an internet terminal, plus you have your own offline backup in case you need it. - xuna, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15I use GMail as my primary account and I feel good about it. What do you mean by "get a real account", people that use IMAP also trust the server to not loose their stuff...
- norick, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I just installed thunderbird, just in case, i am backing up all my mails.
- Whomever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11On Feb 27, this guy leaked an URL for "Google Links" on his website that had evidence of the CL2 Calendar. The URL no longer works. But the screenshot was taken with his google account. I wonder if that's why his account is gone.
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-02-27-n25.html - designerjoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Just make sure that you have all the info that is important backed up. Any important contacts I have in one main address book. I wouldn't use gmail for business.
- tito13kfm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I can see a number of things which possibly happened.
1) Somebody hacked his account (more than likely social hacking - exwife, friend, etc.) and deleted his account.
2) He violated the terms and conditions and google took action.
3) Google ***** up.
Let this be a lesson to all. If you use your email for mission critical stuff, you might want to back it up. Hell if you use ANYTHING for mission critical stuff, you should make backups. Hell with the insane amount of invites you get you could just create hundreds of gmail accounts, have them all linked to something like username@yourdomain.com have 1 be the main forward, and the rest get cc'd and then you have hundreds of backups :).
My website is just a forum and homepage for a WoW guild. Yet I still make weekly backups just in case. - HarryBauzonia, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Only a bonehead would rely on some third-party server or even email for storage of important documents. He created his own horror story.
In any case, he could have used his pop client (they do provide a pop server) and it wouldn't have mattered if Google deleted anything. - norick, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18It really scares me to death, because if my email account is deleted, damn i am dead.
- jtdgrz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11This just seems stupid to me. If you have important files, you back them up, just like you always do with ANY important file. Why the hell would you just leave it sitting on a third party's server? GMail gives you POP3 capabilities, USE IT if you need to. Especially these days when people are cracking passwords left and right, you need to keep your data safe... Dugg because stupidity never ceases to amaze me.
- Odweaver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I agree, people lose data every day, it is a very common occurance. Was this mass deletion? No, it was an isolated incident, now if there is a mass deletion it should be front page, also it is unknown if Google was actually at fault, there is a chance it got hacked and deleted simple as that.
The moral to this story is always have backups of important crap, buy a large usb drive or an external hard drive and keep data on thier along with your normal harddrive, and if it is really that vital, why don't you have a hard copy in a firesafe? - wayjer, on 10/12/2007, -12/+18I think the masses will disagree with you Jack
- Oniony, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7This is crap. Just because something is 'free' does not remove all of your rights to (or expectations of) a quality service. Your rights come down to the service contract you sign up to -- whether you're paying for the service or not. Most free services will offer the user little rights as they get no direct remuneration but that is not always the case. Some providers are willing to offer a first rate service for no money as they'll make their money in other ways such as advertising revenue, building their brand, selling your user data, &c.
Bob may have been wrong to assume more from the service than he possibly got, but that still does not make this 'you got what you deserved because it's free' attitude any more helpful.
Brand trust is a big thing, and almost every user will expect a certain quality from a free service from a big name. - MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I purposely avoid pop because of my frequent HD formats, potential for HD failure, and most importantly, viruses/spam. I have trusted online email accounts to a fault and hope this never occurs to me. I mean, Gmail's sole purpose is to never delete any email and to use a search function to reference anything. I think it's great but I keep my important stuff on another online email provider.
- Ghengis, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12Um, gmail is BETA!!! You don't keep important stuff on/in BETA software.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I just use Gmail to process my spam, which runs at about 11,000 pieces per 30 day period. I forward all other mail to my regular pop account so Gmail just acts as a spam filter and archival. But never my main backup.
Why do people expect so much from free services?
http://www.presenternet.com - lnxaddct, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Preliminary findings appear to conclude that this guy's password was stolen or guessed, someone logged into his account and deleted it. So keep your password safe, but also backup your email now and then using GMail's pop interface.
Regards,
Steve - Hubso, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Its free, you really have no reason to complain. Say somone gives you a free sandwhich, it's ham....but you wanted turkey. Do You Complain???? No, you eat it, and move on in life. And this article, ladies and gentleman is why I do not support open source/free anything!"
Dumbest comment I ever read. - Choaderboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'm glad this got to the front page - people need to be educated about backups. Having worked for several years on a University helpdesk, you would be surprised by the number of people who keep a years worth of dissertation work on a single floppy, which then gets accidentally put through the washing machine, eaten by the dog or lost.
A free mail server (in beta no less!) is no better. - Monoman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Two lessons learned.
1. Do not use a BETA product as a primary tool.
2. Always make BACKUPS of things that are truly important. - armcurl, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8QUOTE: 'Hard Copies' are the digital ones and 'soft copies' are the paper versions
What an odd coincidence!
At my work place 'Hard drives' are spiral bound and sit on your desk, while notepads have an OS installed on them and live in a big beige box underneath. We also call the dark bit when we go to sleep 'day', and the light bit when we're awake 'night' !
What a crazy, mixed up world we live in. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I love GMail. I use it extensively and I aggregate all my other email into it. I used to back up the account through POP3 but then I stopped. I will digg this post if for nothing else then for a good reminder how not to behave with your primary email account. A good lesson.
- astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Duh... GMail is still in development.
Only trust your ISP for email... oh wait thats Comcast... there server is always down...thats ComDrastic!
If these emails were so important, he should have S-A-V-E-D them to his hdisk... An Email server could
go at any time. If you download the important email and burn to DVD you will have it as long as you keep
that DVD safe.
ABBA! (Archive! Backup! Burn! Always!) Its not just a great music group, but also how to protect your data! - ohcoaster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"I have over 300mb of CRUCIAL data in my email, none of which I have backups for."
'data' lol. I don't back up my pr0n either. :D - joshduck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4No, it's not silly. They can't make revenue off online storage drives.
- Oniony, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah, say McDonald's gives you a free McChicken sandwich as part of their promotion. You eat it, you have diarrhoea for two weeks. Now what are you going to do, say "No matter, it was free." Your analogy is fundamentally flawed, it's not about them giving you the *wrong* product, it's about you having expectations (because of the stature of the brand) as to its *quality*.
It'd be a different matter if the sandwich was given to you by a individual person on the street -- you likely wouldn't trust the source as you have no knowledge of the person. - Gnascher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4What BETA means in this case is that there may be bugs.
I don't know if this fellow hit a bug, if thier database somehow got corrupted, or someone actively hit the 'delete' key. However, with BETA software, there is no warranty implied or otherwise.
Yes, GMail is great ... but I personally wouldn't use a web-based email account for anything besides a backup. Personally, I have an email account with my own domain name, and hosted at the same location as my website. I have that email address configured to forward a copy of every email I receive to my GMail account ... this means I have redundancy. One copy on Thunderbird (local copy backed up to another hard-drive on another machine nightly using ntbackup), and another copy at GMail.
This ensures that my critical emails would take a triple failure to be lost. Learn a lesson from this guy's problem ... REDUNDANCY IS GOOD FOR CRITICAL INFORMATION. - domokunt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"I have over 300mb of CRUCIAL data in my email, none of which I have backups for. "
and these sorts of people should be shot - mousky, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6No digg. This guy did not bother to contact Google about his account. It's not a ture horror story until support gives him the runaround and cold shoulder.
- ,,|,_, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4In the words of Strongbad, your email has been BALETED!!!1! That is rough man. I know we all talk a lot of smack about regular backups but stop and think how much of your data is backed up. Sure your life sustaining critical data may be (if you're lucky and not too lazy) but what about the "nice-to-have" stuff like photos and resumes and what not.
Stories like this unfortunately seem to increase our vigilance for only a few days or so before we slip back into our normal routines. - ludwik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He just received a reply from Google, and their response was extremely unhelpful:
=============
From :
Sent : Thursday, March 9, 2006 9:06 PM
To :
Subject : Re: [#49645415] Account Status
Hello,
Thank you for your report.
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.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
================= - wayjer, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8yes, I do, it is all just a fancy light show in here just like the regular media, it is about google and it is hot, therefore the masses will digg it. I don't agree with the idea of this story being on here either, but as they used to say in the newspaper business, it sells papers!
- xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4if the emails were so important, he should've backed them up by saving the docs or printing them. it's common sense.
- konrad8ha, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6How about using IMAP with local offline copies? That's what I do and it works wonders for me. Additionaly I'd never trust anything besides an eMail-account on my own domain with my really important mails. Of course it doesn't provide 100% security as well, but I feel like this is more trustworthy than some mega-corporation like Google.
- indijay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I use gDisk to use Gmail as storage drive and honestly I am prepared to see such horror with my account anytime. First of all Gmail offers you truckload of storage and doesn't offer you chance to use it as storage drive, silly isn't it?
If you use, third party plugins then they can delete your account without your knowledge!! - JamesGlover, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3As others have stated the POP3 facility of Gmail is fantastic, and with a bit of configuration can allow you to seemlessly check mail on the web when out and about, and then via a POP client when at your own workstation, all the while ensuring that all past E-mails are always availible to you, backed up both on Google's servers and your local workstation.
People who are suggesting that a local workstation is 'safer' way of archiving mail have clearly never lost an inbox worth of data. Wherever you store your mail accidents will happen, so back-ups are always a good thing. With Gmail there is the benifit that if you save on your workstation you always have an 'offsite' backup, so even in the event of say a housefire, your E-mails will still be safe. - MalDON, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Oh stop complaining, just email google. I'm sure they have backups too, although they might charge you.
- ucg1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3When the IMAP server is my own server which has daily backups for the last month (plus monthly backups for the last year), and has redundant backups off-site, I think I trust it very much. Even if it wasn't my own server, it is very very easy to setup backups with an IMAP account, even if all you have access to is IMAP. Or you can look for a provider that does backups for you, but I would always do my own in addition to that.
- kartbart, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4IRONY IRONY
This story has an advertisment for MSN Hotmail in the Google Adsense. Gotta love Google. They are going to bury themselves. - BritOverseas, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4GMail is far better than the other "Free" offerings out there/ Hotmail 250 MB, Yahoo at 1GB (if you pay or ever have paid) blah blah.
Also, a lot of companies block Hotmail and Yahoo (I know my clients do, but not Gmail) so there is no way to check your mail whilst in their offices, unless you use wireless 3G or such and even then a lot of my work is international and I am NOT paying those roaming data rates.
So suck it up people, back up your data and stop whining.. - joshduck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Google has bastardized the term "beta" Look how long most of their products are in beta stage for. To most people a "Google beta" means it's safe to use.
- zefer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Is this whole ordeal a stunt? (the following was taken from http://blog.outer-court.com/forum/22209.html)
A comment made by: Philipp Lenssen
I have some new information that makes Bob's story seem unlikely. I still cannot completely validate or falsify it though. For example, I've been told Gmails do not bounce, like Bob said, and also that there's likely no such message as "There are no accounts in our system with the E-mail address usermame[put at-character here]gmail.com which you entered" (both things spammers could abuse as they could find out which Gmail addresses exist). -
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