Google To Users: "Sorry About That, Chief!"

[Jon Westfall]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-ABCs/browse_thread/thread/71546e8e321a3414' target='_blank'>http://groups.google.com/group/Gmai...1546e8e321a3414</a><br /><br /></div><i>"We have been actively investigating a batch of accounts that were accidentally disabled and are currently in the process of re-enabling these accounts. This error occurred in an effort to target a large network of spammers to keep them out of the Gmail system and keep your inbox free from spam. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we re-enable these accounts as quickly as possible."</i><br /><br />Google made a bit of a mistake a few weeks back, with some truly horrible <a href="http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/04/batch-of-gmail-accounts-accidentally.html">horror stories</a> resulting. If you ever needed a GOOD REASON to BACKUP anything important - let this be it. If mighty Google can nuke accounts by accident, it is just more proof that no admin group is above error. <br /><br />Now stop reading this, take inventory of all the important data you have (i.e. files, emails, databases, pictures, movies, software, registration codes, passwords, etc..), and Back It Up!!!

[daS]

I don't use GMail, and I wish I had a way of preventing those that I send mail to from using it too. The fact that Google provides "free" storage of your messages in trade for reading all your mail in order to target ads to you is a huge breach of privacy in my book - and violates their famous slogan of "do no evil." :evil:

Of course, one could argue that I don't have to use GMail if I don't like them reading my mail. But the problem is that if I reply to someone who forwards their mail to GMail, I don't even know what messages of mine are being scanned.

Yes, I know, that as a general rule, you should never send truly private information via email, but it's hard to do business without at least a minimal level of trust in the privacy of email.

For example: I work for a small telecom company. If I send a potential customer information about our services, I really don't want my email thread with them tagged by Goggle to show my customer a targeted ad from AT&amp;T for competing services based on keywords scanned in my (private) email to the client.

As for backups: one should never trust important documents to a single copy, be it local or on an online service like GMail.

[Jason Lee]

For this reason alone i cannot put my trust in a hosted exchange solution. I know you can back it up but i still do not want the main location of my personal, and very important data to be totally out of my control.

And people... please back up your stuff. :lol:

[daS]

For this reason alone i cannot put my trust in a hosted exchange solution.
While I don't use a hosted Exchange service (yet), I'm strongly considering it. While "stuff" happens even with hosted services, I generally think that they do a better job of maintaining backups and having redundant systems that a small office business (such as mine) does. Plus, I don't want to pay for a fixed IP address at home (yes, I know about dynamic DNS) nor have to keep a computer on 24/7 at home as a server - and assure that all my firewalls are secure and up to date!

While my current email server for is a hosted POP system, I'm about to switch it to Exchange in order to get the benefits WM 6.0.

Still, I agree 100% that you need backups of your own as well.

[Gerard]

When I signed up with my website hosting service, in 2000, the owner cautioned that I should keep a full site file backup in case there was ever trouble at his end. He'd never lost a site, but users had accidentally deleted the files from the server themselves and called in a panic, hoping he'd backed up their files... As it turned out, the host's parent company Quik Internet went out of business late last year, without warning. I lost my site. The franchise operator quickly set up an account for me with a local outfit, and thanks to my backup files (on my PPC's SD card, though I keep copies on several different media besides) I was up and running again in a couple of days. A lesson I'd long since learned - backup, backup, backup! - had paid off.

There is this trend to host valuable information with online services. I know Google would like us all to adopt their web-based word processing and other services. And sure, I can see the value for some users. But leaving files there, and the only copy? That goes way beyond a security worry, and well into stupid territory. Servers crash. Software gets corrupted and makes mistakes. There is no such thing as a perfect program. If a person's email is at all important to them, it should not be entrusted to a single location, nor even to a single format, especially not a proprietary one such as Outlook uses. That's why I keep my mail locally, and back it up often. nPOPuk does the job marvelously well, with folders, built-in backup function, and most importantly storing all mail in a plaintext format. There's just no way I'd trust my personal and business communications to Hotmail, GMail, YahooMail (all of which I use, trivially, for group mail) or other web-based solutions. Basically, mail should be kept independent of someone else's staying in business, no matter how big they are. Mail using one's own domain ensures it'll keep working, no matter how many times one has to switch servers, and makes it dead easy to backup.

[fresh-popcorn]

For me I truly do not trust any e-mail to send/receive confidential information but I do use gmail.
Their service is fast and reliable.
I use them extensively and everything I send using them I wouldn't care if it was intercepted since I don't send important info through any e-mail.

Same holds true with cell phones. There are ways for someone or some entity to intercept your info.
The government not excluded.

Just be smart about what you send and what others are sending to you and you should be fine.
Also if someone sends something that I find questionable in terms of confidential info I delete.

[daS]

For me I truly do not trust any e-mail to send/receive confidential information but I do use Gmail.
Their service is fast and reliable.
I use them extensively and everything I send using them I wouldn't care if it was intercepted since I don't send important info through any e-mail.

Same holds true with cell phones. There are ways for someone or some entity to intercept your info.
The government not excluded.
As I noted, I agree 100% regarding confidential information. The trouble is that it's virtually impossible to conduct business in today's world without seeming paranoid if you don't use email and cell phones (or land lines for that matter) for "normal" business information. That means, I don't send my credit card numbers, or a patent pending design by email, but I will send information where the cost of not doing so out-ways the potential risks if the information is released.

My issue with GMail is not one of the risk that the mail will be read by someone that shouldn't have it, but the fact that Google is upfront about the fact that they WILL read private messages placed on their servers!

[Jason Dunn]

I think this underscores one of the biggest hidden issues with online email services: how do you back up all your email? Short of forwarding them all to another email account, or saving them all as text files, you can't. It's ugly, and people don't realize it.

[Paragon]

Problems like this could never happen to me. They always happen to someone else. ;)

[Yata]

I don't use GMail, and I wish I had a way of preventing those that I send mail to from using it too. The fact that Google provides "free" storage of your messages in trade for reading all your mail in order to target ads to you is a huge breach of privacy in my book - and violates their famous slogan of "do no evil."

I don't think that there's a KGB-esque man in a small room reading all your e-mail. I assume that it's done automatically by computers. Their terms and conditions are clearly stated when you sign up and no-one is forcing people to sign up. Users seem willing to receive targeted ads in exchange for a fantastic and free e-mail experience.

I think this underscores one of the biggest hidden issues with online email services: how do you back up all your email? Short of forwarding them all to another email account, or saving them all as text files, you can't. It's ugly, and people don't realize it.

It's a good thing that GMail allows you to forward all (or some, based on user-defined rules) your e-mail to another account then, eh? :)

[daS]

I don't think that there's a KGB-esque man in a small room reading all your e-mail. I assume that it's done automatically by computers. Their terms and conditions are clearly stated when you sign up and no-one is forcing people to sign up. Users seem willing to receive targeted ads in exchange for a fantastic and free e-mail experience.
You seem to have missed my point: Of course I know that the reading of GMail by Google is done by computers and that the users of GMail have opted in. But when I send a message to someone I have NOT opted into Google's using the information I wrote to target ads to the person that I wrote it to. Plus, since you can have a non-GMail account forwarding to your GMail, I can't even elect to "opt-out" by avoiding sending messages to the GMail domain.

As I noted in a previous post, many people send business related messages via email. While the content might not be secret, it's certainly a disadvantage if Google targets keywords in your business correspondents to provide ads for your competitors. Basically, this is automated industrial espionage - questionable behavior for a company that claims its credo is "do no evil". :roll:

[Gerard]

As I noted in a previous post, many people send business related messages via email. While the content might not be secret, it's certainly a disadvantage if Google targets keywords in your business correspondents to provide ads for your competitors. Basically, this is automated industrial espionage - questionable behavior for a company that claims its credo is "do no evil". :roll:

Um... no. Industrial espionage involves finding out the secret information your competitors don't want you to have. Google is not providing your competitors with confidential information about you with their automated contextual ad insertions. They are potentially providing your competition with an advantage, placing their ads alongside your email content and perhaps costing you money, but this is not the same as stealing information at all. Annoying, perhaps (though I doubt it) costly, that's all. Evil? Only if you like google-bashing.

Seriously, who reads the ads supplied by webmail providers? Is anyone that dumb? Maybe, but wow, you'd have to be pretty thoroughly suggestible to make purchase decisions based on ads found in email from free providers.

[Jonathan1]

I don't use GMail, and I wish I had a way of preventing those that I send mail to from using it too. The fact that Google provides "free" storage of your messages in trade for reading all your mail in order to target ads to you is a huge breach of privacy in my book - and violates their famous slogan of "do no evil." :evil:

I have not received a single solitary ad from g-mail when using their pop service.
This argument is no different then getting twitchy that your SSN passed through 20 computers today even though not a single person has actually LOOKED at your SSN. The data being "Read" by goggle's systems is automated. No one is sitting there reading your e-mails. Hell I haven't even found anything that states that the analyzed data is even archived. It may simply be an on the fly process that is discarded once it figures out that you are sending and e-mail about hard drives.

Really the paranoia over people's privacy is getting insane. privacy is a good thing. I never want to loose it. However I'm willing to cash in a few chips if it means I can get some interesting features. personally I love targeted ads. its a hell of a lot better then your random Viagra ad that I really don't need.

Oh and as for the article. Umm disabled accounts I can handle. Data loss? Sorry big G but that is a load. :?

[jarekt]

I use forwarding function in Gmail account - all email are copied to mail2web.com free exchange account. Now I have free mail with free backup and all backuped up messages are pushed to all my WM6 devices as they arrives.
I consider online backup as much more reliable than local one.

[Gerard]

I consider online backup as much more reliable than local one.

Online backup of GMail, sure, very convenient. But it's pretty simple and very, very reliable, tapping File > Backup > OK in nPOPuk. A few seconds later all folders are archived on a card, safe, ready to copy back to the program folder if and when one needs. Want more security? Copy the backed up folder to another card or to the PC. Easy, simple, reliable. And failing all else, the plaintext archived files are easily opened in any word processor, complete with full headers and source code if those are your presets in the program.

[Jon Westfall]

I suppose my own backup strategy might be useful for everyone:

1. All important files are either replicated (via foldershare) across 3 - 4 PCs if they're current, or 1 PC and 2 DVD copies if they are archived.

2. All important files (music, pictures, documents, etc..) reside on a server with mirrored drives. Nightly, this server backs up any changes from the previous day onto an External USB drive.

3. Email (especially valuable) is backed up in the same manner. My email server dumps nightly PST files as well as backs up to an off-site backup.

The only element I'm missing is a spare USB hard drive to swap periodically with the external drive mentioned in #2 above. Once that's in place (soon) i'll be leaving one drive in my office so it's off-site.

I was burned far too many times as a kid (losing 30 - 40 MP3's or some cool videos) to risk being burned by lack of backups as an adult.

[Gerard]

The lesson for me was losing just over 100 contacts entries, all hand-written into my Casio E-115. I trusted Activesync and Outlook. Bad mistake. Luckily I hadn't yet tossed the paper version of those contacts and was able to re-enter them all... I'd be royally up the creek today if I lost 700+, never mind all the rest of my business information. Multiple formats and sites for backups is just good sense. I'll never trust one piece of software with all my data again.

[Jason Dunn]

It's a good thing that GMail allows you to forward all (or some, based on user-defined rules) your e-mail to another account then, eh? :)

Yeah, but who wants to have to manage two instances of email?

Until Gmail or any other online service offers a one-file download of email that could be imported into Outlook, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, etc., this will be a serious limitation of online mail services.

[Jason Dunn]

Seriously, who reads the ads supplied by webmail providers? Is anyone that dumb?

If no one clicked, they wouldn't make money and they wouldn't do it. People do click on ads, even in webmail systems. You, and everyone else, should be glad that people do click on the ads or else there wouldn't BE any free email online, from anyone.

The same question applies to spam - what kind of an idiot clicks on a spam link? Well, they do, because spam is hugely profitable...which is why we have to deal with so much of it.