Month: August 2006

Newsgator support rocks, and thoughts on data retention

Rick Hallihan

After posting my troubles on the Newsgator Support Forum, it was determined that theres was a bug in the “Delete all posts on this page” function.  In less than three days, they fixed the bug, got the code into production, and they were able to restore all my lost clips.  My 300 lost clips were joined by about 400 other clippings that I had saved and subsequently deleted over the past year.  While I’m very happy to have my clippings back, it got me thinking about how Web 2.0 companies retain data.


Now Newsgator has mostly my attention data.  I consider this data to be fairly public, but some folks might disagree.  The fact that they were able to restore my data means that they are retaining it for some period of time.  Every company that stores user data on the web faces a choice.  What do they do with data that is “deleted” by users?  There’s an obvious value in keeping it, both for the customers, and for the business.  The customer might want the data restored.  The business might want it for historical analysis.


Now, I haven’t researched any of these companies, so I don’t know what the answers are.  Just food for thought.  If you remove a photo from Flickr, is it really gone?  What about the email you delete from Hotmail or Gmail?  The draft blog post on Blogger that you decided not to publish?


We’re used to data retention questions coming up in a work context, but more and more of our personal data is living in data farms operated by companies like Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft.  I’m sure if you dig, you can find most of the data retention policies.  Probably in the long legalese usage agreements that normal users click past without reading.  This probably won’t come to the public’s attention until some high profile criminal prosecution pulls out all the stops and subpoenas all this retained data. 

Newsgator ate my clippings…

Rick Hallihan

Update 8/21/2006, 8:19PM: Newsgator is on top of this.  They have escalated the bug, and will post updated info here: http://www.newsgator.com/forum/FindPost20446.aspx





Newsgator just ate approximately 300 entries that I had saved in the “My Clippings” folder.  I use Newsgator Online as my primary aggregator, and a technical glitch just made me really want to switch.


I had a pretty extensive collection of clippings.  A “Blog This” folder with about 10 entries.  A “Read in Detail” folder with many entries that I wanted to read when I had time to concentrate & absorb the information.  A couple of reference folders with info on different topics that I might want to look back on.  The list goes on and on, and now they’re all gone.


I was going through my clippings, and I was viewing a folder that had 4 entries in it.  I decided that I no longer needed any of the four entries, so I clicked the “Delete All Posts On This Page” button.  Well, instead of deleting all the posts on that page, it wiped out all 300 clippings I had made.  All gone.


I was able to repeat this by saving some current articles into different clipping folders, and trying the “Delete All Posts On This Page” button again.  Without fail, using this function wipes out ALL saved clips, not just the ones in the displayed page, not just the ones in the selected folder.  All of them.


 


 

FUSF is gone, Verizon takes opportunity to gouge customers.

Rick Hallihan1 Comment

Update: Lots more at Mercury News and Technorati





I received this email today.  I’m including it in it’s entirety, highligts are mine.



Dear Valued Verizon Online Customer,
Effective August 14, 2006, Verizon Online will stop charging the FUSF (Federal Universal Service Fund) recovery fee. We will stop being assessed the fee by our DSL network suppliers. Therefore, we will no longer be recovering this fee from our customers. The impact of the FUSF fee is as follows: for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 768Kbps, the fee eliminated is $1.25 a month; for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 1.5 Mbps or 3Mbps, the fee eliminated is $2.83 a month (based on current FUSF surcharge amounts). On your bill that includes charges for August 14, 2006 you will see either a partial FUSF Recovery Fee or no FUSF line item at all, depending on your bill cycle.
Starting August 26, 2006, Verizon Online will begin charging a Supplier Surcharge for all new DSL customers, existing customers with a DSL monthly or bundle package, and existing DSL annual plan customers at the time their current annual plan expires. This surcharge is not a government imposed fee or a tax; however, it is intended to help offset costs we incur from our network supplier in providing Verizon Online DSL service. The Supplier Surcharge will initially be set at $1.20 a month for Verizon Online DSL customers with service up to 768Kbps and $2.70 per month for customers with DSL service at higher speeds.
On balance your total bill will remain about the same as it has been or slightly lower.
For more information, see the Announcement in the Help section of Verizon Central, located at http://central.verizon.net
We regret the need to add this Supplier Surcharge, but we thank you for choosing high speed Verizon Online DSL. We appreciate and value your business.
Sincerely,
Verizon Online
Broadband Customer Care Team


So, if I’m reading this correctly, Verizon’s costs are going down, but instead of passing that along to consumers, they are taking the opportunity to raise their fees by an amount that is almost equal to the FUSF.  I guess Verizon figure that consumers won’t really notice, and they get to pad their profits.


I’d love to see some regulation on how service providers advertise pricing.  Taxes and such should not be allowed to be “passed through”, they should just be part of the providers costs of providing the service.  I don’t know many other industries that are allowed to pass through costs this way.  I just want the bottom line.  If your costs go up (new taxes) then you raise your prices, and consumers can see the truth about what they are paying for your services.


The irony?  If Verizon didn’t practice this tax pass through, then they could’ve kept the difference from the elimination of the FUSF and I wouldn’t be complaining.





Update:  After Getting Called Out, Verizon Rescinds Non-USF-Replacement-Fee Fee  — Basically it looks like Verizon tried to pull a fast one, and when they realized the world was watching, they took their hand out of the cookie jar.