150K Gmail Users Lose Everything

It appears accounts were reset; Google promises a fix
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 28, 2011 8:59 AM CST
150K Gmail Users Lose Access to Account, Data Vanishes: Google Promises a Fix
As many as 150,000 Gmail users lost access to their accounts today.   (©Risager)

Bad news for less than 0.08%, by Google's count, of Gmail users: Your account may have "vanished into the cloud," Engadget reports. Gmail users started reporting yesterday morning that they'd lost access to their inboxes—and that, by the time some of them were able to log back in, they had lost years' worth of emails, attachments, and chat logs. It appears a bug reset these accounts, and treated their owners as new users when they logged back in.

Google's initial estimate was that less than .29% of Gmail users were affected, indicating as many as 500,000, but the more recent, downgraded estimate means the number of impacted users is probably closer to 150,000. Even so, as Engadget notes, this might be a good time to back up your Gmail. Google says it is working on a fix, and will restore the missing items, but the timing is vague: "We expect a resolution for all users in the near future." (Click for another reason you should maybe avoid Google ... according to Glenn Beck, at least.)

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