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Yet, most people don't get it. Historically, the main motivation for the birth of the internet was specifically to avoid the dreaded Single Point of Failure. What we see in the cloud concept is exactly the opposite. The cloud can (and statistically it will) eat your data, along with everyone's else. What if a whole contry's data infrastructure is in one failed cloud?

Do you trust one company to be better at handling YOUR data than yourself? Do you trust it will never be hacked? Do you trust it will always be online? Do you trust nobody will access it without your consent?

I don't. You shouldn't.

Also, what happens when you get without internet access? What happens when power is out? (my laptop can run for two hours on battery, my router won't)
What happens when the three-strikes law passes? Not if, given current state of affairs. Will you be locked out of all your data? What when you put all your family HD movies in the cloud, will you need to have fiber to watch it with good quality?

Also, economically that's a catastrophe. The cloud will maintain some companies basically with a monopoly on YOUR data. It will destroy the whole industry based on standalone software. Don't be mislead: you WILL have to pay to get even the most basic software running. Many companies already do that with auto-deactivating software. The cloud will only make it easier.

And for those who think the comment above looks like some doomsday dark sci-fi story, I advice to take a look around. Things are already happening. One doesn't have to dig deep to find news of what's already happening.

Media seems to focusing a lot of attention on Powerset. But they seem to forget another startup which started innovating in the area of semantic search much before Powerset even arrived on the scene - Hakia. Read the following article which does a decent job of comparing the two startups. http://www.centernetworks.com/powerset-hakia

Barack Obama's e-mail comapaigns are run by Blue State Digital described to me by a high-level Democratic Party official as "woefully incompetent"

Barack's Take on Honoring Unsubscribe Requests
His e-mails are also opt-in with no confirmation, allowing a spammer to abuse his mail server and deluging anti-spammers in abuse.

Because of these, and other issues, the AHBL has blacklisted Barack Obama's campaign, and Blue State Digital.

Barack = Spammer, end of story.

Ooh, and I own the AHBL (disclaimer)

There is some additional commentary on the deal on Centernetworks.

FYI, I asked my German friend to comment on the topic and at the bottom of the article are his comments:
http://www.centernetworks.com/first-flickr-now-goo gles-gmail-has-issues-in-germany

The key is to think first: http://www.centernetworks.com/dell-forgets-to-thin k-first-thinks-last Dell forgot to think first.

fyi, the list of all participating companies plus a faq on the platform is here: http://www.centernetworks.com/facebook-announcemen t-facebook-platform

So, the question on everybody's mind. Will I be unblocking Google? Has my blockade been fruitless? Although I miss the fantastic search results, I would have to say "No, and no". I've found that I can get by, and even be more productive, without Google. "Don't Be Evil" is a great motto to have. However, I consider gathering every move I make on the internet to be evil and a violation of my privacy. I don't want this to turn into a political discussion about Google's data gathering, as there is a time and place for that.

CenterNetworks reported this very early this morning...

Entrepreneur.com's traffic dropped by 5 million when they stopped their popunder campaign. Pretty sad...