You always hear back up your work and most know they should but don’t. There are news reports out today about Dennis Cooper an artist who ran his blog on Google owned Blogger, has had his blog wiped away by Google.
Cooper wrote on Facebook:
Yesterday afternoon Google disabled my blog and took it offline. They did the same with my email account. Other than being shown a general ‘violation of our terms of service’ statement, I have been given no explanation for this, and I have not received any response to my questions and complaints thus far. Obviously, until or if this problem is resolved, there will be no new blog posts.
Google apparently has not given any explanation. Cooper is considering taking action.
ScienceAlert.com writes:
Cooper told Ethan Chiel from Fusion that he’s now considering suing Google, and PEN America – an organisation that protects freedom of speech in the US and worldwide – is now pressuring Google on Cooper’s behalf to explain why it disabled the blog.
“Blogs and social media accounts serve as crucial outlets for creative and artistic expression for millions of people around the world, as well as venues for open discussion among interested visitors,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN America.
This is one of the big negatives when you don’t control your content on your own domain name with your own hosting.
Facebook can do the same.
This is partially why I never bought into the whole Facebook page scam.
That is a timely reminder.
Besides, a free service is bound to have some caveats. After all you are the product.
This is one of the unacknowledged reasons I believe the Chinese have invested heavily in short domains.
Its a strategy which allows them to focus on development on the mobile web using short domains, which are easy to use on smartphones, instead of building apps, and thus not being under the control of the two 800lb gorillas of the App world who have total control over apps in their app universe.
this is not new and has been going on since panda and penguin algo versions hit the scene
I had a smartmeter blog with rss feed thru goog and after 2 years with zero issues it was deleted with 1 explanation; 1 rss feed they supplied of course to the site had a copyright issue and they deemed it infringement plus as a scrapper news site it was eligible to delete the blog
even tho I wrote a lot of original content too
Agreed! Like Drudge said, to Hell with the Internet Ghettos of Google, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.
The Internet was not intended to be corporatized and monopolized by a select few parties. Create your own Enterprise!!!
I never did understand spending so much time on a project where you are not in control. People have short memories… myspace/friendster and others.
Firstly, this is a reason to not trust completely the folks at Google. I think nearly everyone in the domain industry has probably received these “violation of our terms of service” emails and account cancellations, particularly when it comes to AdSense. Make no mistake, courts of equity seem hardly concerned about Google screwing people over and suspending their accounts without a reason, given we all use their services for free, and contracts of adhesion, on the web and elsewhere, seem to be the norm these days. We are all to blame for permitting this, but unless we, collectively, come together to cock-block these buttheads in Mountain View, it’s not likely any of this will change.
Secondly, much like the incredulity expressed previously, in other comments, why the hell would this guy not buy a simple domain name, throw up a WP or Joomla platform, and run his own blog without depending on Google and Blogger? How can one run a blog for 14 years and not have a clue about the potential travails of putting all one’s eggs in someone else’s basket?
Or not having a backup.
All services in the cloud can be deleted. Your own backup will save the day.
it feels way too bad that his works are destroyed..its a loss fr the community he built. 🙁
..sAm (Samujjal)