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Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

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Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#91

Post by pnathan »

firemanx wrote: post #67
palish wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the idea of "publicly-held companies" is a net negative for humanity. It encourages immoral behavior. Obviously my thoughts are unreasonable. I wish the world were unreasonable. Because then people might empathize with each other to an unreasonable degree, resulting in far less grief and hate within our microscopic timeline of our universe.

I have to disagree with you. "Publicly-held companies" don't encourage immoral behavior. People encourage immoral behavior. I know that some folks like to think of people as "basically good", but I don't think history has held that out. Humanity has proven time after time that regardless of the social structure or organization, their tendency for immoral behavior pervades each one. "We did it for the shareholders" ma…

A review of government and society prior to about 1600 (ie, the bulk of human history) does not suggest that people are inherently very nice.

A notable example is Ivan the Terrible and his society.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#92

Post by X-Istence »

mrcharles wrote: post #56
sgentle wrote: post #49

I think there's an important lesson here that you can take home right now: If your primary email is an @gmail.com address, you have your head firmly in the lion's mouth. You can backup your data. You can have fallback tools and services. You cannot backup your identity. And if that identity is controlled by Google, you are tying your online existence for the duration to the foibles of a publically traded company with…

The problem with having your own domain for email is the communication factor. When I tell someone my email is charles.lastname@gmail.com, there's no miscommunication. Worst case I have to spell out my last name, but generally if someone's asking for email they already have my last name. If you buy a domain, nowadays, you have few options with respect to getting an email that sounds legit, mature, and isn't long and/…

firstname@lastname.[com|net|org].

Mine is bertjw@regeer.org for example.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#94

Post by guard-of-terra »

I wonder why google lets that happen. They don't have blog monitoring or something? Or are they too arrogant to fix a problem even when it's clearly there (for one person, anyway).

Or is it that you just can't find the one person responsible and empowered with the ability to fix?

Everyone have bugs (another use for blog monitoring), but this one seems pretty loud.

Same for facebook.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#95

Post by DrJokepu »

danilocampos wrote: post #13
c2 wrote: post #5

Google has a support problem. I'm amazed after almost a decade of offering services like email and advertising, they still haven't done anything to develop a reasonable support system for customers to address issues like this. Maybe they have a few open lines with their top 1% of customers but the attitude that "it's free, you are a meaningless statistic in our giant revenue stream so too bad" for the rest of their c…

But, see, the trouble here is that these users aren't customers . They're product sold to advertisers. When I was spending a few million a year on AdWords, guess who had a direct line to Google, both via email and on the phone? I could talk to those guys whenever I wanted about campaigns, get advice on improving my keyword mix, budgeting strategies, any of that stuff. From this business' point of view, individuals ju…

I keep hearing this argument over and over again but the fact is that when I was using Google AdWords and had problems, I received zero (0) support and response from Google. Nothing. And I was a customer in the "I'm paying money for this" sense of the word.

Obviously this is just anecdotical evidence as the only "data point" I have is my own experience and it's possible that everyone else in the world receives five star support from Google right away. None the less, it made me lose a lot of respect for them and in the end I ended up cancelling my account and asked for a refund (which is automated).

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#96

Post by pyre »

wallawe wrote: post #35
palish wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would be a better place if if companies focused on "people", and not on "money". Of course that's unrealistic. But I don't care. I grew up believing in Star-Trek-style society. You know... "Social problems are gone; people are free to devote themselves to improving themselves; etc". I honestly believed that humanity would someday achieve this. I used to believe most people were inherently good, and that the…

I sympathize with your idealistic sort of thinking but it is unreasonable. Corporations (which is what Google is) are responsible to shareholders. The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder. It has nothing to do with being good to people. The only way that this guy's problem will get solved is if enough people catch wind of his situation that it affects the fairly po…

  > The purpose of a corporation by definition is to 
  > maximize the bottom line for the shareholder
That is a definition without qualification. What is the bottom line for the shareholder? The stock price tomorrow? The stock price in 10 years? The dividends paid out this year? The dividends paid over the next decade?

If I push up the stock price $100 over 2 years, but in the process destroy the brand in a way that causes the business to drop in value and eventually close over the next 3 years, have I increased shareholder value?

What if I cut the customer-service budget, saving money and causing customers to hate the company? What happens when an incumbent shows up in the market, and steals away most of my customer base? Did that create shareholder value?

Reciting "money++ is the only thing that matters" as the definition of a corporation is brain-dead.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#97

Post by darklajid »

mrcharles wrote: post #56
sgentle wrote: post #49

I think there's an important lesson here that you can take home right now: If your primary email is an @gmail.com address, you have your head firmly in the lion's mouth. You can backup your data. You can have fallback tools and services. You cannot backup your identity. And if that identity is controlled by Google, you are tying your online existence for the duration to the foibles of a publically traded company with…

The problem with having your own domain for email is the communication factor. When I tell someone my email is charles.lastname@gmail.com, there's no miscommunication. Worst case I have to spell out my last name, but generally if someone's asking for email they already have my last name. If you buy a domain, nowadays, you have few options with respect to getting an email that sounds legit, mature, and isn't long and/…

What about the .name TLD?

I own (for now.. I'm not sure if that can be disputed if more people with my rather rare last name apply) lastname.name

So - you can reach me, if I finally finish my migration and stop being a lazy bastard, at firstname@lastname.name - which is rather good imo.

Sure, I've got other legacy addresses, but this could be a viable alternative to a gmail _identity_.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#98

Post by Daniel_Newby »

wallawe wrote: post #35
palish wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would be a better place if if companies focused on "people", and not on "money". Of course that's unrealistic. But I don't care. I grew up believing in Star-Trek-style society. You know... "Social problems are gone; people are free to devote themselves to improving themselves; etc". I honestly believed that humanity would someday achieve this. I used to believe most people were inherently good, and that the…

I sympathize with your idealistic sort of thinking but it is unreasonable. Corporations (which is what Google is) are responsible to shareholders. The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder. It has nothing to do with being good to people. The only way that this guy's problem will get solved is if enough people catch wind of his situation that it affects the fairly po…

The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder.

No, the purpose of a corporation is to faithfully carry out the corporate bylaws. There are many corporations that do little for the shareholder's bottom line: private schools, charities, self-styled socially responsible businesses, co-ops, government-run public service companies, profit-neutral public utility companies, and many others.

I sympathize with your idealistic sort of thinking but it is unreasonable.

Google could easily start a service department and run it as a profit center: simply require a massive credit card charge or wire transfer before they will help fix your account. That they do not is an intentional choice.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#99

Post by wallawe »

pyre wrote: post #96
wallawe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize with your idealistic sort of thinking but it is unreasonable. Corporations (which is what Google is) are responsible to shareholders. The purpose of a corporation by definition is to maximize the bottom line for the shareholder. It has nothing to do with being good to people. The only way that this guy's problem will get solved is if enough people catch wind of his situation that it affects the fairly po…

> The purpose of a corporation by definition is to > maximize the bottom line for the shareholder That is a definition without qualification. What is the bottom line for the shareholder? The stock price tomorrow? The stock price in 10 years? The dividends paid out this year? The dividends paid over the next decade? If I push up the stock price $100 over 2 years, but in the process destroy the brand in a way that caus…

"Reciting "money++ is the only thing that matters" as the definition of a corporation is brain-dead"

That wasn't my intention, and my definition was ambiguous, you are right. I wrote that off the top of my head. To be more accurate, it is "to maximize shareholder value."

This includes building a solid brand name and maintaining a good reputation via ethical practices.

Re: Google Deletes Last 7 Years Of User's Digital Life, Shrugs

#100

Post by StrawberryFrog »

zem wrote: post #86
lukeschlather wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMAP is horribly unreliable. POP discards information. IMAP also discards information - I don't just want my email, I want my tagged email.

once you have it locally you have all the time in the world to retag it.

Yeah, because manually re-entering data that exists already is just what a geek wants to do with the next few months of their life.

Not.

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