Computer Tips and Tricks

There are many new backup services now available on the Internet, and Carbonite is also available. Their service provides what they describe as unlimited backup, but as one blogger notes, their definition of ‘unlimited’ is suspect. The folks at Carbonite have a loophole in their license agreement, that should be examined carefully before signing up for the paid plan. On their site Carbonite states:

Only $49.95
Per Year -No matter how much you need to back up

But one blogger states that this is not the case. In this article it states:

Well I’m glad I didn’t make it past the free 2 weeks. They canceled my account. Here is the email they sent me:

Dear Carbonite User,

We regret to inform you that you are in violation of Carbonite’s Terms
of Use > www.carbonite.com/termsofuse
Your pending backup size exceeds that of our average user by at least a
factor of 10. Your account has been disabled temporarily. You must
either reduced your pending backup size so that it falls below 100GB or
cancel your account. If you have already purchased Carbonite you may
request a full refund. Please let us know how you would like to proceed.

Sincerely,

Carbonite, Inc.

The writer also has posted the TOS [terms of service] Carbonite provides:

YOU WILL BE IN VIOLATION OF THIS POLICY IF, WITHIN ANY MONTH, YOUR USAGE GREATLY EXCEEDS MORE THAN THE AVERAGE LEVEL OF MONTHLY USAGE OF CARBONITE�S PAID SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMERS GENERALLY. FOR PURPOSES OF THIS POLICY, �USAGE� MEANS THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF BANDWIDTH OR STORAGE REQUIREMENTS GENERATED BY BACKING UP YOUR COMPUTER, AS DETERMINED BY US IN OUR SOLE DISCRETION. (I.E., USAGE WITHIN ANY MONTH IN EXCESS OF MORE THAN THE AVERAGE LEVEL OF MONTHLY USAGE OF OUR PAID SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMERS GENERALLY).

So it seems that ‘unlimited’ according to Carbonite is: ‘YOUR USAGE GREATLY EXCEEDS MORE THAN THE AVERAGE LEVEL OF MONTHLY USAGE OF CARBONITE’S PAID SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMERS GENERALLY.’

So how much usage is over usage?  What amount is a user supposed to use before going over? It would appear that Carbonite should specify the exact amount and not make it a hit or miss guess by their subscribers.

What do you think?

Comments welcome.

Blog post.

Carbonite site.

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