A timely warning!

I was shocked to read this http://www.twitlonger.com/show/bt5akp long message from a Google user who has had his account terminated for an alleged but unexplained breach of terms and conditions.

It is claimed that Google hasn't explained or responded in a professional manner to the user concerned, and this should be a heads up to anyone about the danger of relying solely on online services to store their information, whether it be emails, images, documents, videos, or whatever. One word is needed here: BACKUP!

If you have everything stored in Gmail, Yahoo!, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube or anywhere other service you risk losing it if you do not have a copy of it yourself, offline, in a safe and secure location such as a standalone backup drive like the example here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200792. Such devices are not expensive*, they are simple to set up (plug into your USB port and use), and you can even get free software which will back everything up for you on a schedule of your choice - an example we have used is here: http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp [Note: * Compared to the cost of losing all your data, the hassle of delays, lost work, lost emails, and all the other inconvenience.]

Although these huge online services have apparently good Terms & Conditions, it seems that their implementation is not always carried out in the way which smaller businesses do. These huge businesses have long been abused by spammers and those with less than respectable intentions, and objections to those persons' activities, via an email to the relevant abuse@ address for the service, has normally resulted in reasonably swift termination of problem users' accounts. But times have changed, and rather than simply being a spammers' tool these services have marketed themselves to those users who want to undertake legitimate online activities. By doing so these big services need to change their approach to reports of abuse and not simply press the terminate button, but they need to set up a system of notifications to the account holder advising them of a complaint and allowing the user a reasonable time to investigate and respond to and disprove the allegation. In law, an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, online it seems that an accused is guilty, full stop. The only way to improve things is for users to raise this issue with the big services and request an alteration in the way they do business. Otherwise nothing will change.

We have a huge sympathy for the person who has lost everything, and we understand how frustrating it must be to not be able to get answers to the questions raised about the account. By sharing this here we hope to help prevent others from suffering the same fate.

Respecting your customers

I read a very interesting article today by Michael Schrage on the Harvard Business Review website in part of which he discusses the damage which being disrespectful of dismissive of your customers can be incredibly damaging to your business.
http://blogs.hbr.org/schrage/2011/06/do-you-think-your-customers-ar.html

Whilst few now follow the old adage "the customer is always right", it seems the change of attitude in many companies to one of "the customer is just a nuisance or simply thick" is becoming more pervasive in many businesses, which the consequence that many customers no longer feel valued at all by the businesses they deal with.

Regardless of the size of a business, the customer should be the most important part of it, which is why our ethos right from the start has been "affordable, effective and ethical" web services. We won't sell you a service you don't need just because we can, and we won't treat you as an idiot if you don't understand what we do. After all, if you did understand it like we do you'd not need our services anyhow!

If we can help you with any aspect of a web service of if you just need some advice in the first instance, please drop us a line or give us a call at Yobunny.
You'll find contact details for each part of what we do via our portal website http://www.yobunny.co.uk.