I always thought that one of the benefits of storing data in the Cloud was to delegate the safety of my precious family photos and archives to a trusted third party. By keeping data safe, I basically mean backup and privacy. Wikipedia appears to agree with me.
Storing data in the Cloud is supposed to free me from worrying about flood, fire, theft or other disasters that could destroy my files on my local hard disk. By making that data available from anywhere in the world, I also want to be sure that only I decide who gets to see it.
I thought wrong.
Just for once, I actually read some of those agreements that I typically just ‘tick’ the box on. I read Apple’s iCloud and Microsoft’s SkyDrive Cloud service agreements and was surprised by what I found. Both companies neatly exonerate themselves from any such responsibilities. Quite the contrary, their respective agreements protect only themselves from service failures.
Here’s what I found by reading the small print:
Data Safety: If Microsoft loses my files or provokes any other problems, their liability is limited to the cost of one month’s service.
- “We strive to keep the services up and running; however, all online services suffer occasional disruptions and outages, and Microsoft isn’t liable for any disruption or loss you may suffer as a result. You should regularly backup the content that you store on the services. Having a regular backup plan and following it can help you prevent loss of your content.”
Privacy: There are no privacy guarantees:
- “We do not rent or sell personal information to third parties, but we do communicate this information to companies working on our behalf.”
More surprisingly, these are generic service-level agreements that apply to Microsoft Azure, destined for Software-as-a-Service business applications. And remember, in Office 2013, saving to SkyDrive is the default, not to drive C:! Business users beware!
Microsoft has also rather cheekily inserted a class action waiver, which forgoes (at least in the US) user’s rights to collectively sue Microsoft in court. This all but eliminates lawsuits against Microsoft save for very angry individuals with very deep pockets. Such disputes must be settled with arbitration rather than litigation, reducing the value of potential claims. Expect this to be a trend that other consumer Cloud service providers will adopt.
- “10.4. Class action waiver. Any proceedings to resolve or litigate any dispute in any forum will be conducted solely on an individual basis. Neither you nor Microsoft will seek to have any dispute heard as a class action or in any other proceeding in which either party acts or proposes to act in a representative capacity. No arbitration or proceeding will be combined with another without the prior written consent of all parties to all affected arbitrations or proceedings.”
Read the full agreement.
Data Safety: If you intend to use iCloud, better continue to make those backups too.
- “Apple shall use reasonable skill and due care in providing the Service, but, TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE BY APPLICABLE LAW, APPLE DOES NOT GUARANTEE OR WARRANT THAT ANY CONTENT YOU MAY STORE OR ACCESS THROUGH THE SERVICE WILL NOT BE SUBJECT TO INADVERTENT DAMAGE, CORRUPTION, LOSS, OR REMOVAL IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, AND APPLE SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE SHOULD SUCH DAMAGE, CORRUPTION, LOSS, OR REMOVAL OCCUR. It is your responsibility to maintain appropriate alternate backup of your information and data.”
Privacy: There are no privacy guarantees:
- “You further understand and agree that this information may be transferred to the United States and/or other countries for storage, processing and use by Apple, its affiliates, and/or their service providers.”
Read the full agreement.
In short, keep making the backups and if you want privacy, start encrypting your data. There are a couple of automated encryption services available I can recommend for use with Cloud storage.
Here’s one for non-geeks that works transparently.
And for the more geeky, this service offers greater flexibility and power.
Is Woz right then?
All of this of course fuels Steve Wozniak’s skepticism about the Cloud. Suffice to say that not all Clouds are built the same and just because the major brands are taking shortcuts doesn’t mean the industry is as a whole. The question remains though, even if you use one of these Cloud services for personal use, at least there should be an optional fee for backups.
Businesses serious about the Cloud can find infrastructure service providers that cater to this need and most Software-as-a-Service providers incorporate them into their Service-Level Agreements (SLAs). Such agreements tend to go far beyond provisions for backups, providing uptime, high-availability, disaster recovery, privacy and security guarantees.
The Fourth Column 
An alternative to paying more for a SLA is to utilize multiple cloud services (preferably three) to store your data redundantly. That way even if they simply have an outage and not a loss of data you can still get to your data. Unfortunately there isn’t a client-side only piece of software that takes care of this currently, although there are few services that do.