In an attempt to build awareness of its plethora of online services, Google has launched a dedicated website to explain the virtues of its online backup system. Users can find extensive information and instructional material at DataLiberation.org and the site is invaluable if you have been worrying about the vulnerability and accessibility of your personal data that is stored in relation to any of Google’s products.
The Data Liberation site is full of suggestions and guides as to how best to ‘escape from’ or indeed ‘escape to’ Google’s various services, including GMail, YouTube and Blogger. Other inclusions in Google’s data backup resource are AdWords and Google Maps. It is believed that customers are by no means aware of their rights and privileges in relation to data backup within these services.
The point of the Data Liberation site is to highlight how easy it is to quickly remove or restore your data to and from Google’s services thanks to its backup system. A manager at Data Liberation, Brian Fitzpatrick, highlighted that Google customers receive all of the benefits of online backup free of charge and that the aim of the Data Liberation site is informative. It will be obvious to those who visit the site that it is also a powerful promotional tool.
The site itself takes its name from a scene in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian and this informal, jocular style runs throughout the site. Google wants to promote the idea that whilst it is now a large corporation with multiple divisions and a diverse product range, it does not wish to be seen to trap its customers into using any of its services. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has frequently voiced his commitment to customer freedom. Schmidt believes that customers should be allowed to join and leave Google’s services without hindrance.
The Data Liberation website states that although Google is committed to online backup services being secure as well as allowing the customer a reasonable degree of control, not all of its products are completely ‘liberated’. A third of its services still have some kind of lock-in for users’ data, which means whilst it may be securely backed up, it is impossible for users to completely remove their data from Google’s servers at the present time.
