Google Docs: Forever?

They say you don't need to worry about hard drive failure ever again. Corrupted files? A think of the past. The disbelievers said that there'd be no recourse if something went wrong. If the cloud lost your files, there'd be no backup. I laughed at them for their blasphemy against the Google. You can trust Google. They're here to save us.

The disbelievers were right. You can't trust the cloud. I just lost a Google Doc spreadsheet. It was important. Like, I could get sued for not keeping a copy important. Really.

I was using Google Docs. I was a big anti-microsoft guy, you see. Google could do no wrong, and betas were prone to bugs, but I forgave them. I bought a macbook, used firefox the rest of the time, and pushed for open source software at work. Microsoft was the devil, and I had to fight them.

Sure, Windows Vista got a pretty bad wrap the first go 'round, but Vista SP1... oh, sorry, I mean Windows 7 sounds pretty solid, even to a hardcore microsoft hater. DX10? Hot. But still, if I could get away from the archaic Office platform, I'd be all the better. And since Open Office installations are hit and miss, I started using Google Docs in a big way. I planned my wedding with Google Docs. I've brainstormed hypothetical names of my future children in Google Docs. I trusted Google Docs.

And so, you can understand how if I had a personal loan from a friend who helped me out when I was in a tough spot, I'd turn to Google Docs to record it. We wrote up the contract in Google Docs. I set up the payment schedule in Google Docs. I was updating the payment history on the spreadsheet in Google Docs. Then the docs were gone.

What happened? Well, I've emailed Google, but I don't expect a useful word back. I'm one of a billion users, after all. Here's my theory. My friend uses hotmail. His only gmail account was a work email through Google for Domain, the business accounts. When he got a new job and moved, they eventually got around to closing his account. This killed all of his documents in Google Docs...

Apparently, they've made some changes to the way files are shared with corporate accounts. I don't see ANY of the files I had shared with people at that company (where I have several friends). It looks like I was either blacklisted from them (being a former employee, parted on good terms), or they've locked off their business accounts from the world. That makes perfect sense for most files, given corporate espionage concerns regarding files created by their employees. Except...

This was MY file. I shared it to my friend's account. When they closed that account, my suspicion is that they killed or removed access to all files that account had write-access to. Including my loan paperwork.

I don't have backups. I trusted Google. After using Wave, I had an epiphany that they really were looking ahead, seeing the future, paving the way, even if the world's not ready. Now I have to reconsider. Maybe they're just another big, dumb corporation after all.

Google: Microsoft and Comcast are just now getting their shit together. Don't sink to their level. You created Gmail, and Maps, and Android. You're a hero to a lot of people. Watch the details. Sometimes, details matter.