Shameless, Self-serving Get-Me-(and-You!) Something Free Request
I signed up today for Mozy, a service highly recommended to me by several people. Mozy provides 2 GB of free online storage (unlimited space is $5/month), which is more than enough to back up the most important files on my computer.
Here’s the deal: if you sign up too by clicking here (or by using the referral code XAL6GC when you register), we both get 256 MB additional free space. For a limited time, there is no limit to how much extra free space you can accumulate just by shamelessly soliciting your Internet friends (like me!).
One small catch: you don’t get credited with the free space until the new user actually uploads something to his/her account. So if you sign up on my referral, do me a favor and at least upload that photo of Aunt Bertha that you never care if you see again!
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April 28th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
This is a great resource. 256 coming your way. My work is being uploaded right now.
Thanks!
April 28th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Thanks, Art! The program really is cooler than I had thought. It’s a simple to set up totally automate backup. All my most essential documents and the photos I keep on my laptop (most of my photos are already uploaded to Picasaweb) took up only about 1/3 of my space. Now that they are uploaded, all i have to do is click an icon in the status bar of my Mac, click “start backup” and any new or changed files are uploaded, keeping the backup current.
I’ve been worried for some time about not doing backups; now this makes it easy!
April 28th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I’ve been meaning to get round to doing this for ages! You get my 256 MB. Thanks for the spur to action.
April 28th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I just took a lot at this. The privacy agreement doesn’t make you a bit nervous? It sounds much more pervasive than gmail, for instance. I was inches from signing up until I read the privacy agreement.
April 28th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Here’s another 256MB for you. This is great, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
April 28th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
JD: What specific provisions in the privacy policy make you nervous? The fact that their servers (securely) store identifying information connected to the uploaded data? They state that they would only disclose that information because of a law enforcement subpoena. Since I am not uploading anything to their site that is illegal, immoral, or even fattening, that doesn’t particularly concern me. If law enforcement had some reason to suspect me of illegal activity, they could get a warrant to come in my home and seize my computer and any storage medium I have here. So this hardly seems to me like an undue concern (again, as long as I am not uploading to them anything that I would worry about having on my own computer in terms of legality).
However, if that is a concern for you, I could understand your now wanting to sign up. I would agree that anyone signing up should carefully read the privacy agreement and decide whether or not they can live with the terms in exchange for the value of the service.
April 28th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
I’m worried about other stuff. If it was only the stuff you mentioned, I’d be fine. That’s why I’m comfortable with gmail.
The software and cookies you download to use Mozy apparently collect information about whatever websites you visit, computer configurations, etc., but also anomalous “personal data” which could include phone numbers, social security numbers, addresses of you and your friends, email addresses, etc. etc. etc. (who knows what–it doesn’t say, and it may not even discriminate). Then it says it gives (translate, “sells”) that personal data to 3rd parties who can then contact you (or your friends listed in your computer) via that personal data to sell you stuff (which could imply more spam, phone calls, mail). And of course even though that data is secure on Mozy, there’s no telling how secure those 3rd parties are, and they’re not bound by your agreeing to Mozy’s privacy statement. I’m more worried about them than Mozy.
The way Mozy can pay for you to have gigabytes of data is by acquiring information about you and your friends via a program you install, and then selling that information to others who want your money. Perhaps I’m a little paranoid, but I know I’m annoyed by extra folks contacting me and I’m frightened by identity theft. It happens all the time because of stuff like this.
April 28th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I don’t want to get in a debate with you over this, JD, but I think your are wrongly interpreting what you are seeing in the privacy policy. I can not find anything explicitly like what you stated above.
First of all, it is stated in their FAQ that they do not read the users information nor do they sell the users information to anyone. That seems straightforward enough. Also, from their privacy page: “We will not sell or market the email addresses of registered Users to third parties. We will not view the files that you backup using the Mozy backup service.”
You claim that they “collect information about whatever websites you visit, computer configurations, etc., but also anomalous “personal data†which could include phone numbers, social security numbers, addresses of you and your friends, email addresses, etc. etc. etc. (who knows what–it doesn’t say, and it may not even discriminate).” What they actually say is
Lots of Internet service for which you register as a user (including wtsbooks.com!) use cookies. They are almost inescapable. In the case of my bookstore, a cookie file on your computer is necessary to hold on to what is in your shopping cart and then (once you are securely logged-on) associate that cart with your customer record and then store any changes you make (addresses, billing info, etc.) until you place your order. This is standard procedure for almost any site that you log into.
What the second paragraph of the privacy policy quoted above means is NOT that Mozy is INTENTIONALLY gathering information about your surfing habits or what you entered on other sites, but simply a standard disclaimer that since Mozy must keep active cookies on your computer (in order to automate the backups by noting when files have changed on your computer) it is POSSIBLE that latent information from other sites could get picked up. You should be aware that that could happen when you log into ANY web service that needs to track your IP address (as Mozy does in order to make the backups work). It does not mean that the information is intentionally gathered, nor does it mean that Mozy sells or gives it to others. They explicitly state elsewhere that they do not do that. They are simply providing full disclosure that such information could find its way to their logs. If this worries you, set Mozy to only do manual backups (turn auto backups off) and then clear all secure information from your browser before logging in to Mozy. (Most modern browsers allow you to clear all browsing history, cookies, and other secure information, usually from the preferences.)
You further said that Mozy “gives (translate, “sellsâ€) that personal data to 3rd parties who can then contact you (or your friends listed in your computer) via that personal data to sell you stuff (which could imply more spam, phone calls, mail). And of course even though that data is secure on Mozy, there’s no telling how secure those 3rd parties are, and they’re not bound by your agreeing to Mozy’s privacy statement. I’m more worried about them than Mozy.”
Where do they say anything like that?? I can’t find that anywhere on their site. The only thing that comes close is their statement that “The Mozy.com web site may contain links to other sites that are not under our control. These web sites have their own policies regarding privacy. You should review those policies before visiting the web sites. We have no responsibility for linked web sites, and we provide these links solely for the convenience and information of our visitors.” That again is a standard disclaimer FOR OUTGOING LINKS FROM THEIR WEB SITE. Notice nothing is said about “giving” or “selling” information to third parties. What is being said there is that IF they have a link on their web site that goes to a non-Mozy site and you click that link, you are at your own risk. The Mozy privacy policy does not apply to sites they don’t own. Duh! That could be said of every link to other blogs or sites on my own blog. I can promise you that I don’t use your personal information while on my blog, but I certainly can’t promise the same for any blogs or sites I might link to.
More importantly, nothing there (or anywhere on their site) says that they will give or sell your information to any outside parties, much less that you will be contacted by such parties. They do say that “Berkeley Data Systems may need to provide your Personal Data to third parties to deliver specific services to you (such as hosting services or support services). These third parties are required not to disclose your Personal Data and not to use your Personal Data other than to provide the services requested by Berkeley Data Systems.” Again, this is perfectly normal. Even your beloved Gmail which you hold up as a pristine example, does that. An enterprise as large as Google could never own enough server space on its own to provide all they do. They contract to rent space on third-party servers, and also “farm out” some of their processing. Doing so necessitates transmitting your user information to those third parties. However, as Mozy states, they contractually require those out-sourced services to provide you with the same level of privacy and protection they themselves provide.
Their (actual) policy is actually pretty standard for a lot of Internet services you might sign up for. If you are not comfortable with their policy, you probably should not sign up for anything on the web. That practice would certainly make you more secure than I am, but I am not willing to entirely give up the usefulness provided to me by many net services. For goodness sake, every time I use my credit card in a store I risk identity theft. If I lived in fear of that, I’d move to a cabin in the woods and become self-sufficient (which has a whole other set of risks).
By the way, if you believe that your information while using Gmail or other Google services is 100% secure and never used…you haven’t been following the news.
April 28th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
One more thing…I doubt that Mozy (which has been around for years, by the way) would have garnered the high ratings and glowing reviews they have from so many major tech sites as well as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times if they were doing what you claim. As a matter of fact, to sell your data to others without explicitly telling you so in the user agreement would be illegal.
So what is their business model? How are they making money giving away free storage space if they are not selling your info to spammers? I would suspect in a couple of ways, both of which are very standard practice for legitimate “free” web services these days:
1) The free space is a “loss leader.” In retailing, a loss leader is something you sell at or below your cost in order to attract customers into the store. Once they are in the store, your hope is that they will buy something else. In Mozy’s case, the obvious hope would be that you might want to upgrade to the paid unlimited service. Obviously only a certain percentage of their users will do that, but that is OK as long as it is enough. It’s a numbers game: storage space is relatively cheap these days, so a company like Mozy can afford to give relatively small bits of it away for free knowing that a sufficient percentage of those users will be willing ot pay for more. Plus they also have corporate level plans, and they are probably betting that the free service will get them known so that their name might be more likely to come up when companies are considering online storage.
2) Selling aggregate data to third parties. This would mean making available lumped statistics about the geographic distribution, data types stored, etc. of their user base. Again, to do this legally, nothing in that data would be linked to any individual user.
Both of those are very standard net business models.
April 28th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Well much thanks due to you my loyal readers. In just a few hours my free space on Mozy has doubled thanks to you!
April 28th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
By the way…
I want to make clear that “JD” is someone I consider a good friend. I apologize public ly if I sound snarky toward him at all in my rebuttals above. I think he is right to be very cautious on the Internet, even if I disagree with his interpretations of this companies policy statements.
And let it be known that JD has more brain power in his left earlobe than I have in my whole cranium! He ain’t no fool.