It’s always just a little bit creepy to hear news like this, but WMPoweruser has a story about multiple users who have had their Windows Live accounts suspended over content that was uploaded to their SkyDrive. The recent example that inspired the post was of a user who lost access to his entire Windows Live account, not just SkyDrive. His email, apps, Xbox Live achievements, everything. He had to create a new account and start over.
The content that got the user suspended was in a private folder and could not have been accessed by other users. Given just how strict the Windows Live code of conduct is and how much storage space they’ve given away for free, it isn’t hard to imagine that many users will start to run into this problem. Read the first three rules and you might find yourself wanting to double-check the contents of your SkyDrive folder. They ban profanity. It’s 2012 and you can’t type out the word “damn” and upload it to a private folder. Good thing I’m writing this article on Google Drive.
Other highlights from the code of conduct include nudity of any kind (full, partial, human, non-human, animate, or photographic), obscenity (I guess they’ll know if when they see it), and the fact that you can’t incite or advocate for any of these things. So if a zex advice columnist writes an article advocating the use of pornography and saves it to SkyDrive, I guess they are in danger of having their account suspended (stay away, Dan). What if Rush Limbaugh writes content for his radio show and it incites someone to curse aloud, would that violate these terms? I’m not sure how someone would incite pronography…
Ok, now move down to item four which prohibits content that “provides or creates links to external sites that violate this Code of Conduct.” So not only can Microsoft ban you for keeping a text file of naughty words in a private folder, they can ban you for linking to, say, this article. Now, do I actually think Microsoft would suspend my account for saving a private Word document that contains swear words? No. But I wouldn’t have they they would suspend a photographer for storing his own work that contains partial nudity either. What happens when a mom uses her Windows phone to take a picture of her kids in the bath which then gets automatically uploaded to SkyDrive? Would she get in trouble? Stranger things have happened.
Cloud storage is still a tricky issue. Most users see the data they store online as private. Just as private at the data they store on their own hard drives. After all, it’s illegal to break into someone else’s email, so why should Google or Microsoft or the government be able to browse through my file attachments? On the other hand, it’s understandable that companies that provide us with these services don’t want to be on the hook when one of their users decides to launch a spam campaign or share illegal content from their cloud drive. It’s probably a good idea to be conservative with what you store on someone else’s server, but Microsoft is probably going a little too far here.