I recently discovered I could no longer access my blog at http://spaces.msn.com/ericcbow/ and e-mailed MSN Live Spaces for an explanation. After more than a week of such e-mails I finally got an answer; here is their answer.
“Thank you for writing to Windows Live Spaces Customer Support. We understand that you are having issues accessing your Space, ericcbow. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
We have found your Space to be in violation of the Windows Live Spaces Code of Conduct as it contains images involving personal information. As this violation is serious in nature, we were forced to close down your Space.
Also, if your Space is disabled, you will not be able to access your Windows Live SkyDrive and Windows Live Profile accounts.
We encourage you to review the Windows Live Spaces Code of Conduct by visiting this link: http://help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=en-us&project=tou&querytype=keyword&query=coc Thank you for using Windows Live Spaces.”
As far as I can tell “contains images involving personal information” is the jpeg file of my father’s “Certificate of Registration” I uploaded into my album of ancestor pictures to accompany the blog post commemorating my father’s landing in Canada on 10 November 1910. I can’t see where this is in the list of Prohibited uses since I inherited the document. The Certificate is an historic document; the Government of Canada stopped issuing them after WW2.
I know it looks like a passport and I guess MSN Live Spaces thinks it could be reproduced and used for identity theft by at terrorist to get into the United States. But honestly look at the date and age of my father today he would be approaching 109. When is the last time you saw a 109 year old terrorist particularly one looking like my dad did at age 43?
In any event why close down my whole blog for one image? Why not just remove the offending images and send me an explanation? “Contains images involving personal information” more than a week after closing me down is far from an adequate explanation. I am aware of their Termination and Cancellation clause, “Microsoft reserves the right, at its sole discretion, and without any obligation to do so, to review and remove user-created services and content at will and without notice, and delete content and accounts. Microsoft reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to ban participants or terminate access to services.” But I feel Microsoft should at least give me the chance to retrieve all my pictures and posts from my blog.
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