Ouch…so apparently life on a cloud isn't too pleasant. The T-Mobile Sidekick works on cloud computing. This means that all user data is stored on the T-Mobile servers and data is synchronized whenever the phone is rebooted. Recently T-Mobile lost all its customer data in a catastrophic server crash – and here's the best part – they had no backup system.
Early word was that T-Mobile could not recover any of the data and they encouraged users not to reboot their phone. At current time Microsoft has said that they can recover most, if not all the data, for users. T-Mobile now seems to be confident that they can recover all the data and they are offering $100 to anyone whose data cannot be recovered.
Class action lawsuits have already been filed for people who suffered losses. One lawsuit claims that T-Mobile misled customers into thinking their data was safe. Another lawsuit says that the T-Mobile's advertising did not disclose the fact that T-Mobile had no backup solution for this data. Sidekick user Maureen Thompson alleges in a lawsuit filed in federal district court in San Jose, California that one of the major selling points of Sidekicks was that users always had access to their personal data, and that such data would and could properly be entrusted to the defendants to maintain and retain, safely, securely and always available.
Thompson claims she "suffered a complete and catastrophic loss of all data", including appointments and contacts. Her daughter, an aspiring model and singer-songwriter, lost photos and lyrics she wrote that she had stored on the device.
Thompson's lawyer, Michael Aschenbrener of Kamber Edelson claims that Thompson and her daughter chose Sidekick to avoid the very scenario that occurred.
It looks as though T-Mobile has been working around the clock to get data restored and it now appears that minimal users will suffer data loss (whatever "minimal" means). I'd be terrified if I were a Sidekick user.
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