You Get What You Pay For, or Beware the Free G!
I’ve been using Gmail for the past couple of months now, and I’ve been pretty happy with the service--until Monday.
Monday morning, I found myself unable to log in to my gmail account. When I tried, Google informed me that it was experiencing a server error, and urged me to try again “in 30 seconds.” I tried numerous times throughout the day, but the problem persisted at least through midnight.
Fine. Everyone has hardware errors. The problem came when I tried reporting the error. Google maintains no customer service for Gmail users. There is no phone number, no one to talk to, and no e-mail address to which to report problems. In fact, the e-mail addresses that are there (if you’re patient enough to look for them), respond by repeating FAQ responses and explaining that Google doesn’t respond to individual requests.
Eventually--some time mid-morning Tuesday, my account reappeared, but without any new mail (including several tests that I had sent myself from other accounts). Again, my attempts to learn the source of the problem and its likely resolution led to nothing other than useless rehashed FAQs. My tests did eventually straggle in, though without any information from Google I have no idea what happened, what might have been lost, and when it will recur.
Does Google owe me better? Probably not. After all, it’s not like I’m paying for Gmail. But this entire episode serves as a reminder: you get what you pay for. It was a mistake for me to trust important correspondence to an organization that owes me nothing.
Caveat emptor? Perhaps. More like caveat freerider. I’m still not certain how best to adjust my behavior in the future, but there is an important lesson here--one worth pondering until it does lead to new action items.
[Update: 9/29
Google did write back:
Thanks for your messages. The mail delays and login issues that you
experienced on Monday and Tuesday were caused by a temporary network issue
that has now been resolved. Even though some messages may have been
delayed, all mail has now been successfully delivered to your Gmail
account.
We apologize about any inconvenience this issue may have caused. If you
have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to reply to this
email and we’ll be happy to help in any way we can.
I’ll give them this. For a company that promised to “do good” right in their prospectus, they’re certainly polite.
My deeper question remains, though. How much should I--or anyone--trust to a company that owes us nothing? And if were paying some nominal fee, say $100 a year for account maintenance, would that change the answer in a fundamental way?
These are the questions that warrant thought. They remind me of some discussions that I had with transactional lawyers engaged in drafting ASP contracts several years ago. How is liability allocated within our new world of virtual business relationships? How should we allocate liability? And how much trust should we extend where liability is lacking?
Stay tuned.]
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Comments:
I think the question of liability should be answered by a discussion around not what the vendor should promise in terms of reliability, but what flexibility the vendor provides to customers to access their data.
If I am an email service provider, I should enable POP-like access to my customers’ personal data, namely their email, with all the metadata they need to recreate that service --- unless I am willing to expose myself to an arbitrary level of damages resulting from lost or delayed email. Though, otoh, I am not sure why Gmail shd promise anything more than the USPS does --- after all, with the USPS, you only pay for delivery and possibly a premium for limited material damages. Why should we expect more from an ASP --- or should we?
I would be interested to hear more about your discussions with the lawyers, especially given my experience with an ASP firm that makes software FOR lawyers. I believe our customer and consultants have unreasonable expectation of our software --- but I am confused as to what sort of limits we can reasonably write into a contract, without making the contract so dense as to become a business liability.
Liability is a surprisingly complex concept, tied to both reasonable expectations and industry practice. Here are just a few of the questions that are likely to arise over the next few years or decades, as we sort out the new relationships of the information age.
1. In tort law, we have a concept called “attractive nuisance.” If I dig a large hole on my private property, you enter without permission, fall in the hole and get hurt, a court will likely find me liable. What, if anything, is the counterpart with respect to websites?
2. If I attract you to my website with a promise of free, reliable service, what level of reliability am I required to provide?
3. Suppose my click-through license (to which you agree) absolves me of all liability? Will a court uphold it?
Fundamentally, people are liable in tort for negligent behavior that leads to others getting hurt. They are liable in contract for “material breach.” But negligence and materiality are both matters of reason and convention; they change with time and environment.
My little adventure with Gmail did not raise any of these issues--but it did lead me to refocus on them. Google and I have a contract. Gmail provides a service, and I provide Google with an addition to its membership list, as well as other data. What obligations do we have with respect to each other? Which of these obligations can be waived by contract? Which claimed waivers will be deemed unconscionable?
Anyone with a year of law school behind them will recognize these questions. They are not new. But the environment in which we’re asking them is--and that means that old answers require rethinking.
No one yet knows the answers, but I can promise one thing: we’re going to see these questions arising increasingly often over the next decade.
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