If I were a professional photographer missing client material or someone who lost potentially irreplaceable memories I'd want a hell of a lot more then just "[Cannon's] deepest apologies".
The primary use case of the service is the short-term 30-day storage mode where you can auto-upload photos straight out of camera and auto-download them to your computer. The long-term storage is an afterthought, the available space is tiny at 10GB, and if the service is not used in a year, all images are automatically deleted.
IANAL, but when a service is advertised as being ideal for storing your work or photos, isn't that directly implying that there is a warranty that their service is fit-for-purpose? You can't advertise something in big lettering and then countermand that in the small-print - so those magic words certainly don't shield the company from liability at all.
I understand that the "without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied"-line we see in software-licenses and EULAs is when software is distributed without consideration (e.g. open-source software), but when there is consideration (i.e. people paying Canon to host their photos...) then there's a liability if Canon lost peoples' data - so I understand they will be sued for this if anyone lost anything of value. At the very least a 100% refund...
They only way I can see Canon getting out of this is if they had prominent warnings displayed throughout their service's UX advising their users that their service was not suitable for long-term storage of valuable data.
Again, IANAL - can anyone is is a lawyer chip-in?
Some legal concepts such as "fit for purpose" as defined in the UK's Consumer Rights Act (2015) certainly seem relevant here, but that states that companies should offer replacement or refund. Note the word refund, not recompence, is used: Canon may be required to repay you in full everything you paid for the service. All £0.00 of it.
> i.e. people paying Canon to host their photos
Is this the case though? Several other comments have mentioned it being a free service. https://image.canon/st/en/faq.html states that too. Unless there is a non-free option too.
> but when a service is advertised as being ideal for storing your work or photos
I'm not sure what it is advertised as, but that doesn't seem to be what the service is intended for.
Reading other parts of the FAQ it seems that the service is intended as a transfer agent, with the convenience of online storage being a useful side effect. Quoting the FAQ: "Image.canon is designed to ease your imaging workflow – whether you are a professional, enthusiast, or casual user. Wirelessly connecting your camera to the service allows seamless forward of images not only to your computer and smartphone devices but ...". The implication I'm making being that they can just argue that their service is designed to move images around your devices and the user should have been backing them up from there.
Users might try to argue false advertising if "fit for purpose" doesn't fly because of the purpose being defined differently. But good luck funding such as case against the lawyers that Canon can afford. It would have to be a class-action or similar, unless some government body takes the issue up (which from the users PoV will effectively be the same, and the best they'll get is a small voucher for a few £ off future Canon offerings). That is what a lot of things like this boil down to: legally enforceable sometimes doesn't exactly mean legal, it sometimes means "can be enforced by having a better legal team than the little guy"!
I would expect the answers to be highly dependent on jurisdiction.
I'd then like then to have insurance to ensure they are able to pay out rather than go bankrupt.
They can then proudly write those $$$ numbers on the feature list, and I'll use it to decide which service to buy.