If you know me, you know I’m an advocate for using Google’s suite of web apps. I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Chrome, Google Reader, Google Voice and Google Docs on a day-to-day basis. In the past five years, I’ve moved more and more of my life into my Google account. I like the apps and their integration so much that I give Google the benefit of the doubt when people speculate about the security issues and locking your data away to a 3rd party company.
However, Chris Brogan, a new media/social media just recently had to deal with the effects of a disabled Google account. Remember, all of their services are integrated into a single account. There are hundreds of benefits to this integration, but when you’re locked out of one service, you’re locked out of all of them.
Some of you might be thinking “What’s the big deal?” True, for those of you thinking that way, it’s not a huge deal. But for someone who makes a living using the internet, losing access to these services is almost equivalent to your computer being broken. Luckily, it didn’t take him too long to get his account reactivated, so in this case it ended up being more of an inconvenience. However, he still has not been told the exact reasons for his account to be disabled (besides a “perceived violation of either the Google Terms of Service or product-specific Terms of Service.”)
Cloud computing, as you’ll know if you read this blog, has a huge amount of benefits, most notably the convenience of ubiquitous access. However, there’s nothing more inconvenient than temporarily losing access to all of your online life. Companies like Google need to make sure hiccups like this one happen so infrequently that the general public can’t reasonably worry about putting all of their data in the cloud.
Check out Chris’ blog post for more:
When Google Owns You – A New Chapter via Lifehacker
UPDATE 4/23/2010: I’m wondering if there was a major Google glitch in the past few days. Boston-based media maven C. C. Chapman wrote about a similar Google account lockout today. (via @matthewebel)
What happens when your Google account is disabled?
However, Chris Brogan, a new media/social media just recently had to deal with the effects of a disabled Google account. Remember, all of their services are integrated into a single account. There are hundreds of benefits to this integration, but when you’re locked out of one service, you’re locked out of all of them.
Some of you might be thinking “What’s the big deal?” True, for those of you thinking that way, it’s not a huge deal. But for someone who makes a living using the internet, losing access to these services is almost equivalent to your computer being broken. Luckily, it didn’t take him too long to get his account reactivated, so in this case it ended up being more of an inconvenience. However, he still has not been told the exact reasons for his account to be disabled (besides a “perceived violation of either the Google Terms of Service or product-specific Terms of Service.”)
Cloud computing, as you’ll know if you read this blog, has a huge amount of benefits, most notably the convenience of ubiquitous access. However, there’s nothing more inconvenient than temporarily losing access to all of your online life. Companies like Google need to make sure hiccups like this one happen so infrequently that the general public can’t reasonably worry about putting all of their data in the cloud.
Check out Chris’ blog post for more:
When Google Owns You – A New Chapter via Lifehacker
UPDATE 4/23/2010: I’m wondering if there was a major Google glitch in the past few days. Boston-based media maven C. C. Chapman wrote about a similar Google account lockout today. (via @matthewebel)