HTC deleting customer data next month

HTC

HTC will be wiping all customer data from its back-up service in order to give the site a revamp.

The Taiwanese phone manufacturer shared the news with its customers via a blog on the HTCSense.com site, warning any data stored there would be permanently deleted at the end of April.

"HTCSense.com is undergoing a renovation to improve the services and value we deliver to customers like you," it read.

After April 30, your data will no longer be accessible and will be deleted.

"Until the new services are ready, features previously available on HTCSense.com will be shutting down."

Data backed up from handsets, including contacts, messages, footprints and call histories, will all be removed.

"You can download your data through April 30, 2012," the blog continued. "After April 30, your data will no longer be accessible and will be deleted."

HTC recommended users visit the newly branded Android application store, Google Play, to find a suitable replacement to back-up their handset content.

HTCSense.com was only launched in September 2010, meaning the site lasted less than two years before being scrapped.

The re-design mapartnership with Dropbox that it announced at Mobile World Congress in February this year. Users of the new range of HTC One devices will get 25GB of free storage from the cloud company integrated into their smartphones.

We contacted HTC to find out the motivation behind the move, but it had not returned our request for comment at the time of publication.

The blog concluded: "We apologise for any inconvenience. You'll be among the first to know when the new and improved services are ready."

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.