On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Angus Scott-Fleming
<angu...@geoapps.com> wrote:
> That'll work fine if you don't mind (a) Google having access to your calendar
> so they can decide what adverts fit your appointments today and
Most "free" web-based services do semantic analysis for targeted
ads. That includes many web pages which one is just casually surfing
to. It seems like Google gets singled out for this. I can understand
not wanting to participate, but I don't get why Google gets called out
while Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, et. al. do not.
Personally, I find Google's ads a lot less obtrusive than those on
MSN, Yahoo, and Facebook.
> (b) trusting that none of your users will p*ss Google off enough that
> they yank your account.
Of the three links you posted, none of them mention anything about
any deliberate action on Google's part, and one even states that after
contacting Google, the account was restored from "backup servers".
That doesn't sound like Google being "pissed off".
The common speculative cause is that the popular free services are
all subject to constant attacks (especially attacks looking for weak
passwords). Accounts get compromised all the time. When that
happens, the operator usually has practical choice but to suspend the
account.
Or Google may have lost data through incompetence or apathy. It
doesn't require malice.
Certainly, the fact that sometimes these "free" services will
abruptly suspend/terminate accounts is a vulnerability. (Whether or
not the operators have cause for their action is irrelevant; you're
still without an account.) When it comes to any third-party service
("cloud"), I highly recommend maintaining your own copies of all your
data. Don't trust someone else to make your backups for you. This
applies enormously more so for any "free" service. If your usage
pattern diverges such that they
-- Ben
~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
