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At stake was years' worth of personal and business correspondence, photos and the itinerary for a recently purchased trip, the San Jose, Calif., health care worker said. Frantic, she called the Microsoft-run e-mail service, only to get worse news: Due to "system events," the files were gone forever, and there was nothing to be done about it, a technical support staffer eventually replied.
"It's scary," Felton said. "These services are easy and free, so people don't even think about using them. But they should know there are risks. I won't store so much stuff on Hotmail again."
Felton's story offers a new twist on the ever-present danger of data destruction in the digital age, throwing a spotlight on the responsibilities of online service providers. Meanwhile, consumers are being bombarded with promotions for vast amounts of free storage--up to 1 gigabyte's worth in the case of Google's new Gmail Web-based e-mail and a slew of copycat services.
Consumers have been burned in the past. For example, service providers hosting customer files online folded suddenly at the end of the dot-com boom. Online storage providers such as Myspace.com and I-Drive.com that collapsed at the time gave scant notice, and some customers complained of lost files. Online photo site PhotoPoint closed down with no notice at all, although it later offered to return files to its 1.25 million customers if they paid a fee.
In a statement, Microsoft said "issues" have occasionally beset its Hotmail service, although the most recent case appears to have affected only Felton's free account.
"We put many precautions in place to protect our network and assure against customer data loss, which includes regular system backups to prevent file storage issues," Brooke Richardson, product manager for MSN and Hotmail, wrote in an e-mail. "That said, we recognize that issues can arise...In this case specifically, it appears to be an isolated incident that is not recurring within our customer base. We are working to understand how the customer's data was lost, but we are not able to recover the customer's files."
Legal experts said there is generally little recourse for consumers in the event of data loss on services such as Hotmail, which are typically covered by terms-of-service agreements that provide broad liability exemptions.
"In general, consumers are out of luck," said Ira Rothken, an attorney based in San Rafael, Calif., who has litigated such cases in the past. "Frankly, it's understandable. There are always going to be glitches that lead to data loss."
He said consumers can protect themselves by ensuring that valuable files are adequately backed up. Some Web-based e-mail services, such as Yahoo Mail, allow customers to download e-mail to their desktops and retrieve them using a PC-based e-mail client such as Microsoft's Outlook. Online storage services such as IBackup, Xdrive and Connected also provide file backup services for a monthly fee.
Raghu Kulkarni, a spokesman for IBackup, said demand for online storage services is growing. The privately held company serves thousands of customers who subscribe to service packages that run from $3 to $800 a month. The most popular plan costs $14.95 a month for a 4GB backup plan.
But he offers a sobering note: Online storage companies don't guarantee customers a fail-safe backup system.
"We do not provide a 100 percent guarantee that the backup will take place," he said. "That cannot be guaranteed by anyone. That's just because of the nature of the Internet--it's very difficult to provide a 100 percent guarantee."
Online storage is great -- I use it myself to make easy web pages for photos. But it's not the only place I store ANYTHING -- I want it on a computer that's under my control, or copied to a CD or DVD that *I* can take responsibility for. People who are willing to trust some huge company to safeguard their information (for FREE) are asking for problems...which doesn't make it any easier when it comes.
Here's a sample:
Hi Corry,
I understand your frustratoin regarding the e-mails that were lost from your Hotmail account (millercor@hotmail.com)., I see that you've used our service for 2+ years. Durring that time frame you've had one troublehshooting tickit logged with us. Unfortunately from time to time things happen. If you take a look at the terms of use agreement that you ok'd when you signed up with hotmail you'll see that we are not responsible for any monitary loss associated with using hotmail and considering you've had two years of service with this one issue I don't see grounds for a refund and listed in the agreement with MSN Hotmail Extra storage is a notice that the fee is non-refundable.
Thank you
MSN Billing.
health site messages I had stored there - all gone.
Now for those of you who are interested, I didn't get burned so
badly because I had forwarded from my Hotmail account to my
regular account (where messages are stored on my computer) all
important messages, business and personal.
Yes, it can fill up your computer if you don't spend a little time
transferring text messages to M Works or Apple Works and filing
them on CD-rw or DVD-rw. But if you spend the moments
forwarding and filing, you lose nothing.
In any event, you pay one way or another for what seems free.
So the reader who complained that we were fools about trusting a free service is full of BUNK.
Go ahead and get off hotmail. You'll get SPAMMED
I am a producer with a national television news syndication company. We produce television segments that air within the local newscasts nationwide. I am working on a story about the loss of stored email. I would like to talk with you about your experience and see if you might be interested in participating in the story. You can reach me via email at mtoccin@bellsouth.net Thanks
Marisa Toccin
misleading. They suggest that lots of people have lost files on
Hotmail, when in fact only one person has reported anything
lost.
This way all the spam goes to that account, while me real email
is used for friends and family.
I am a producer with a national television news syndication company. We produce television segments that air within the local newscasts nationwide. I am working on a story about the loss of stored email. I would like to talk with you about your experience and see if you might be interested in participating in the story. You can reach me via email at mtoccin@bellsouth.net Thanks and I'll look foward to speaking with you,
Marisa Toccin
Posted by: Robert Healey
Posted on: June 4, 2004, 7:58 AM PDT
Story: Hotmail incinerates customer files
I logged on to my Hotmail accoun t and thought I'd check some
health site messages I had stored there - all gone.
Now for those of you who are interested, I didn't get burned so
badly because I had forwarded from my Hotmail account to my
regular account (where messages are stored on my computer) all
important messages, business and personal.
Yes, it can fill up your computer if you don't spend a little time
transferring text messages to M Works or Apple Works and filing
them on CD-rw or DVD-rw. But if you spend the moments
forwarding and filing, you lose nothing.
In any event, you pay one way or another for what seems free.
Learn to backup your data on your own. Only you can make a difference...
--GIF
TT
Sometimes there will be a whole month in the middle of my emails missing. I have learned to copy any incoming important mail to another folder out of hotmail in my outlook bar.
That is if I get a chance to read it. They were so good for so many years, don't know what is going on lately.
I too have lost my entire account but like others I learned long ago not to trust important information to someone elses server.
I am a producer with a national television news syndication company. We produce television segments that air within the local newscasts nationwide. I am working on a story about the loss of stored email. I would like to talk with you about your experience and see if you might be interested in participating in the story. You can reach me via email at mtoccin@bellsouth.net Thanks and I'll look foward to speaking with you,
Marisa Toccin
to follow new guidelines in order to "keep" my free account. Is
Hotmail going through puberty blues, as I am also finding it
ludecrously hard to create a new account for a friend of mine
and there are no links to do this- only passport. What is going
on?
I only use hotmail as a MSN Messenger facilitator and as
website ID instead of my business account with .mac. I thought
it was very harsh to delete these files as there were some
sentimental letters from years back- I can live without them but
now I must visit hotmail every 10 days for three months. I can
understand trying to clean up their system, but this is absurd
and unwarranted. Are Microsoft going to disband Hotmail? Is
this why I cant find an easy way to get a new account up?
The ONLY upside is that the THOUSANDS of junk mail that filled my inbox and that have become the bane of hotmail(which is what drove me to use it less and less, incidentally) are miraculously gone. How long before it comes back?
I think they should have fixed the junk mail problem rather that "fix" hotmail - which WASN'T BROKEN!!!
- by mnzs July 16, 2008 8:38 AM PDT
- The Hotmail practice of losing / wiping off customer emails is still happening today (July 2008).
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(34 Comments)As late as a couple of weeks ago, all my emails, (some dating from 10-12 years ago) were all there.
A couple of days ago, however, I discovered that most of them have -simply- disappeared/vanished/been incinerated (you choose word).
What was most deplorable though was that the Hotmail Support team was putting the blame on me by suggesting and taking it for granted that I deleted my emails myself.
Obviously, apart from ridiculous, I find their arrogance and disrespect as most disturbing.