TechDirt is warning that everyone using web based email to have a backup plan in place for their emails when these use these services. Many people have switched to Gmail for their email program and rely on Google to store all their emails forever. Gmail even suggests you never delete anything as they’ll keep adding more and more storage space for all the saved mail.

But, according to TechDirt, some people are loosing all the email they store in these web based email systems:

Web-based email has made quite the comeback in the past few years thanks to massive increases in email storage offerings, as well as revamped user interfaces. However, it appears that all of the big players have run into some problems actually keeping email systems online. This past week there have been stories of both AOL and Yahoo losing a ton of email (thousands of emails for AOL, millions for Yahoo Japan). This comes just a few months after Google had some problems with mass email deletions in Gmail. While the convenience these services provide is fantastic, all of these stories of lost emails should act as a reminder that you probably shouldn’t trust any of these providers alone to care for your email. It’s almost surprising that we haven’t seen more of an effort by these or other providers to position email backup services as well, promising to keep you running, should your main account get knocked out or deleted.

While it’s definitely not a bad idea to keep a backup of all your email, I don’t believe it is a critical thing for most people. If you’re in business and are required to retain emails by law it is a different story. But how many people really need all those joke emails their cousin forwards them? It’s so much more important for everyone to be backing up all the data on their computers. Statistically, it’s far more likely for your home computer to fail and lose data than for Google to loose your emails.

[Maybe You Should Back Up Your Own Email; Google, AOL, Yahoo All Losing Emails]

Tags: google, aol, yahoo, email, gmail, mail, web based email, techdirt