A lawsuit has been filed against Palm and Sprint Nextel over a snafu in the information backup service they provide for webOS-based devices that may have permanently erased some users' personal data.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in San Jose, alleges Palm and Sprint deceived consumers by failing to adequately outline potential problems with the service. The filing also alleges the companies failed to invest in the necessary hardware, software and procedures to ensure the remote backup service worked properly.

"The result of this system is that many webOS device users suffered and continue to suffer significant and permanent data loss, including but not limited to the loss of instant messages, emails, calendar entries, contacts in their address books and applications paid for and downloaded from the Palm App Catalog," according to the complaint.

The lawsuit is seeking class-action status that would cover all users of webOS devices, including the Pre and Palm Pixi, as well as the set of users who have lost data.

The problem apparently stems from the automatic backup function offered by Palm called Palm Profile. The service remotely saves contact, calendar, task, memo and other information stored on users' webOS devices, allowing them to move the information to a new device--by logging into their Palm Profile--if their phone is lost or stolen. However, according to various user forums and news reports, some users moving from one device to another have been unable to access large amounts of their backed-up information.

The same law firm filing the lawsuit against Palm and Sprint also filed a similar lawsuit against T-Mobile USA and Microsoft in October over data losses among Sidekick users, despite the fact that Microsoft said it was able to restore many users' information. Michael Aschenbrener of the law firm KamberEdelson L.L.C. said the lawsuit against T-Mobile and Microsoft would move forward despite Microsoft's assertions.

For more:
- see this IDG News Service article
- read the complaint (PDF)

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