Things I'd like to see before I consider using or recommending GDrive:
- A statement from Google regarding whether or not they will scan the data and files in GDrive to develop further profiling information or other data about the user
- A guarantee from Google that GDrive will not be subject to account lockout in the event of account suspension due to AdWords/AdSense algorithmic (or human) triggers. In fact, I'd want that guarantee for any Google service.
Here's what Dropbox has that Google cannot currently offer: If your work in AdSense/AdWords triggers a Google account suspension you do not loose access to your data with Dropbox.
Being that the algorithmic shutdown can happen at any time, without notice, warning or recourse, it is a far safer bet to keep your data on Dropbox, at any price.
The other guarantee you have is that Dropbox will not mine your data, email and docs to get deeper into your head and your life. Maybe Google offers this too. I don't know. I quit looking at their terms of service a while ago. I'll reserve judgement on that. I'm sure someone will tell me how this works.
In fact, Dropbox, the best come-back to GDrive might very well be to offer email and document services. I know that this might be a huge undertaking, but I am sure that there are lots of people, like myself, who have developed a serious trust issue with Google due to the way they behave on the AdWords/AdSense side of things.
This is an area ripe for an incursion simply because of what google isn't doing well: Customer Service.
As I have stated on numerous posts in the past, I have zero interest in any tool outside of Google Analytics because of the shitty approach they have to customer-no-service everywhere else. Could I use gmail and gdocs? Of course. Would I pay for that service? Certainly. Why don't I? Because I have zero interest in loosing access to my data because of some shitty algorithm, the lack of a staged approach to dealing with account issues and an even crappier non-existing customer service philosophy.
Why not have a Google account for work and one for personal use? Either way, getting locked out of Drive is pretty silly--like Dropbox you always have backups synced on your machines.
I think there's evidence of Goggle detecting multiple accounts and suspending all of them when an algo triggers on one of the accounts. I can't vouch for this but I remember reading posts about such things maybe a year ago.
It's not necessarily about loosing data or loosing GDrive alone. There are many scenarios one could think of. Firstly, if your account gets locked out you loose ALL Google services. If you've been using Gmail for years, it's gone. Documents? Gone. Everything Google, gone. It doesn't matter if you are paying for the service or not. It's gone and you have virtually no recourse.
One possible GDrive scenario (of the many one could imagine) is that of someone going on a family trip and uploading photos to GDrive during the trip to make room on their flash card. Somewhere along their Google account is suspended because of, well, who knows? All of their photos are gone.
Business trip. Upload your presentation and other materials to GDrive. Travel light. Account suspended by the time you get to your destination. Screwed.
With GDrive storage options reaching terabytes there will be many instances of people relying on GDrive for primary storage. That can certainly be the case with Google Docs, where the documents themselves are created online as well.
Clearly this is not an issue for the vast majority of Google account holders. This is due to the fact that account suspensions are more widely reported for users of AdSense and AdWords. In other words, business users. Your average Google user would not (and should not) have this problem. This is good for average consumers yet bad in that there might not be enough of an incentive for Google to be compelled to change their ways and be more reasonable with business users. What they telegraph is that they really couldn't give a rats ass if they kill-off someone's account because it doesn't even move one atom in their revenue stream. Tough problem to solve if you are nobody, as is the case for most of us.
Google encourages people to have multiple accounts in some cases (they even tried their best to force it when converting products over to Google Apps), I think you only get in trouble if you are banned and then try to use another account for the same activity.
I'd create a Google Apps for business account and use that for all business stuff (AdSense/AdWords/Analytics). They won't disable that and you get phone support.
> A statement from Google regarding whether or not they will scan the data and files in GDrive to develop further profiling information or other data about the user
The privacy policy unequivocally states that they will use all your data to improve the service, which means that humans will be extremely restricted from reading your data, but the robots have free reign.
- A statement from Google regarding whether or not they will scan the data and files in GDrive to develop further profiling information or other data about the user
- A guarantee from Google that GDrive will not be subject to account lockout in the event of account suspension due to AdWords/AdSense algorithmic (or human) triggers. In fact, I'd want that guarantee for any Google service.
Here's what Dropbox has that Google cannot currently offer: If your work in AdSense/AdWords triggers a Google account suspension you do not loose access to your data with Dropbox.
Being that the algorithmic shutdown can happen at any time, without notice, warning or recourse, it is a far safer bet to keep your data on Dropbox, at any price.
The other guarantee you have is that Dropbox will not mine your data, email and docs to get deeper into your head and your life. Maybe Google offers this too. I don't know. I quit looking at their terms of service a while ago. I'll reserve judgement on that. I'm sure someone will tell me how this works.
In fact, Dropbox, the best come-back to GDrive might very well be to offer email and document services. I know that this might be a huge undertaking, but I am sure that there are lots of people, like myself, who have developed a serious trust issue with Google due to the way they behave on the AdWords/AdSense side of things.
This is an area ripe for an incursion simply because of what google isn't doing well: Customer Service.
As I have stated on numerous posts in the past, I have zero interest in any tool outside of Google Analytics because of the shitty approach they have to customer-no-service everywhere else. Could I use gmail and gdocs? Of course. Would I pay for that service? Certainly. Why don't I? Because I have zero interest in loosing access to my data because of some shitty algorithm, the lack of a staged approach to dealing with account issues and an even crappier non-existing customer service philosophy.
Why I feel this way (from about a week ago): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804260
A thought on what could be a better system: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3804260