David Lazarus of SFGate.com writes about the danger of online photo storage and sharing. Kodak's Ofoto stores 500 million images -- at least for a while.
The article describes a customer who lost 36 online albumns, including her wedding photos. The reason?
"We have reviewed your account and did not find a recent purchase. This means that we are not able to restore your images as you are not in compliance with the Terms of Service." Snapfish has a similar policy; Shutterfly and Yahoo Photos do not.
The terms of agreement meant she lost access to the albumns because she hadn't purchased something from Ofoto. Or did it? "We truly regret to inform you, once an album has been deleted, we are unable to restore the photos." Hundreds of photos erased.
Ofoto does send out warning emails, but in this case the customer had moved and changed her email address, but still accessed her Ofoto account.
Lesson: Back up your photos on CDs and DVDs. Have three copies, two of which are off-site (store them at another lcoation, like the home of your relatives or friends.)
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