It appears that Sidekick users in the USA, who stored their data/backups on-line though the Microsoft/Danger on-line cloud service, have lost access to all their data after a server failure:
“Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device—such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos—that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.”
T-Mobile is offering 1 month free data usage in return for this problem however the backlash on public forums makes it obvious this is of little comfort to those who have lost data.
So the question to ask is how secure is your data in cloud computing environments? Well probably as secure as possible however they may not be good enough for you. I personally think everyone should take responsibility for their own data – if a 3rd party has an issue ( and issues do occur ), you can’t go and blame them unless it was due to negligence. Equipment fails – deal with it and make sure your data is safe.