Nearly everyone has a blog in some form or another. I so often see individuals, and even companies use a service provider to manage their blog. This is referring to the many popular ones such as Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous, and so on. They’re easy to use, simply provide some basic information and they’ll set you up with a ready to use blog with easy configuration. However, my biggest concern is ownership of data. Who owns the data you post? With the recent Facebook privacy issues becoming a hot topic, it’s time to step back and evaluate the information you post online.
photo credit: Forrestal_PL
This blog is hosted through Dream Host. I pay a monthly fee for shared space on a server. They provide the tools to assist me in installing the WordPress application, the SQL database to house the information, and ongoing backups. That middle part is the most important one, the SQL database. This means that I own my data. Every comment, picture, post, link that I post on this blog is kept in a database, that I own, can save and archive.
Here are some basic questions to ask your provider. You may have to pull up the dreaded terms of service to answer these questions.
- Who owns my data?
- Can I export all my data into a file for future use and backup?
- How much control do I have over the configuration?
What do you think? Am I being paranoid or is there legitimate concerns?
Legitimate. I keep my blog hosted so I have control over the database. And there's some comfort in knowing that, if I don't pay my bill, DreamHost won't bend over backwards to keep my content.
Although sending DreamHost $100 a year for something I haven't really been using kinda hurts, I still can't bring myself to give up the hosting. The only thing better than a hosting service would be running my own server. Even though I have the knowledge, I don't need that kind of grief.
Agree, it's too much work to run your own server. However, hosting is as close to owning the data without running your own box at home.