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Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

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Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#181

Post by JohnTHaller »

whack wrote: post #153

I found the following cryptic snippet, from the Guardian's coverage of this topic: "He had a featured post, twice a month, where he would take ads by escorts and highlight their literary qualities." I have little idea what the above really means, but it almost sounds like advertising/marketing for prostitution. My best guess at the moment, is that Google considered the above to be a flagrant violation of its rules, a…

He was taking existing ads for escorts in the wild and critiquing them as satire.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#182

Post by JohnTHaller »

soft_dev_person wrote: post #10
corobo wrote: post #3

Summary of the article > It’s gone because it was kept entirely on his blog Take backups.

They closed his email-account too, though? It has never occurred to me to backup my entire Gmail archive. Should probably look into that now...

Any hosted email account can be disappeared without recourse. Particularly a free one where the company owes you nothing.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#183

Post by [deleted] »

xigency wrote: post #180
nl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people even read the posted articles at all?! From the article: Cooper should’ve backed his work up, or known to be more cautious with drafts. ... ... Admittedly, not everything has vanished. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has saved bits and pieces of Cooper’s blog dating back to January 3, 2012, but they are just snapshots of the blog’s front page for a given date, not capturing the blog in its entirety.

Probably not a backup of his email though!

[deleted]

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#184

Post by wmil »

leonroy wrote: post #91
a3n wrote: post #71

The hindsight-prescriptive comments here focus on backing up, and that's a sensible practice. But there was another kind of damage done here, to the man's identity, location and voice. His blog and his email address were his public persona. He used his blog and his address as identity, and as his channel of communication with followers, other artists, and I assume most of his general online communication. That person…

Fully agree with your comments, but I fear we're going in the wrong direction with the silo-ization of the web and the decline in open standards being ratified and used by large companies. Just look at Google's hostility towards maintaining standardized IMAP/SMTP support for third party mail clients. Google Apps and Office 365 would drop IMAP access to their services in a heartbeat if they could. Furthermore a lot of…

Closed platforms come with a risk of censorship. Open platforms come with floods of spam and phishing attacks.

Fundamentally life is about trade offs. For most people closed platforms are the better choice.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#185

Post by kuschku »

hackits wrote: post #107
transfire wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's NOT like that. Rather Chad already sold it all off to Craigslist and informed the owner after the fact. If Google was a storage facility and did this, free or no, they would be liable.

Storage facility will charge for the service because storing physical goods and providing 24/7 security cost money. Last time I checked they will have a clause in the contract if X weeks go by and you have not paid your bill they will auction the items off to recover the debt. Though could be different for different storage facilities. For example, lets reverse this a little bit. Lets say you're storing a clients dat…

I send a letter by certified mail telling them I'll destroy it in 2 weeks, and destroy it then.

You always have to inform the user first, even if it's in the contract.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#186

Post by CaptSpify »

arundelo wrote: post #161
a3n wrote: post #71

The hindsight-prescriptive comments here focus on backing up, and that's a sensible practice. But there was another kind of damage done here, to the man's identity, location and voice. His blog and his email address were his public persona. He used his blog and his address as identity, and as his channel of communication with followers, other artists, and I assume most of his general online communication. That person…

I've had my own domain for quite a while and have been meaning to start using an email address on that domain. The main reason I haven't is that I'm procrastinating the initial trouble of setting it up, but I'm also a bit scared from hearing stories of people who do this and then occasionally have email to them or from them bounce or disappear. (Maybe this is not as common a problem as I get the impression it is.) Ed…

I do that. It's actually not too bad, I think the occasional missing email is overblown. At least, I don't typically have problems.

Of course, it's important to keep backups of everything (configs, logs, mail, etc), and test. Just slowly port everything over, as you gain more confidence that your not missing anything. Most email providers also will let you put a rule in place that lets you bounce mail to both addresses.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#187

Post by stephengoodwin »

planteen wrote: post #171
mark_l_watson wrote: post #82

Everyone should occasionally use Google Takeout to back up their stuff, but non-tech users don't understand this. I use my own domain and private email service but I do run my blog on blogger. But, I have done the experiment of converting Google Takeout data for my blog and hosting it on my own server. My default is to use blogger because I like how comments are handled. Services that Google and Facebook provide can…

I had no idea Google Takeout existed. Thanks. I backed up my Gmail over IMAP in the past but this looks far easier.

I love Takeout. Given how much of our lives is invested into digital platform, I wish every Internet company had something similar to Takeout for user data.

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#189

Post by mbesto »

wpietri wrote: post #154
mbesto wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That persona no longer exists. He's been all but disappeared, and it's going to take a long time for him to reconnect. If the internet didn't exist, an artist would have bought storage for his art. Why this artist feels that a service he didn't pay for owes him anything is baffling to me.

Ah, blaming the victim, always easy. Turn it around, though: if Google feels like it's not responsible for anything it hosts, shouldn't it say so, loud and clear? Say, a banner that says, "Hey, we'll delete your stuff any time we feel like it," at the top of every Gmail page? Google's users aren't parasites. There is both a relationship and an exchange of economic value. That's why Google has worked very hard to be t…

> Ah, blaming the victim, always easy.

Typing out words on a forum and hitting "reply" is easy regardless whether you support the victim or not. Don't see your point?

Re: Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work

#190

Post by voltagex_ »

a3n wrote: post #71

The hindsight-prescriptive comments here focus on backing up, and that's a sensible practice. But there was another kind of damage done here, to the man's identity, location and voice. His blog and his email address were his public persona. He used his blog and his address as identity, and as his channel of communication with followers, other artists, and I assume most of his general online communication. That person…

I've got 8 years of emails, logins and now Android apps associated with a Google Apps domain (1 user, $6AUD a month).

I've got an exit plan for my email, but I'd lose at least $200 of apps.

It's really easy to become dependent on a service.

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